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Chatbot Startup Gupshup Buys Knowlarity in $100 Million Deal

Indian-origin Gupshup said it is acquiring Knowlarity to bolster its voice messaging and video solutions capabilities.

Chatbot Startup Gupshup Buys Knowlarity in $100 Million Deal
A chatbot application. (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

Chatbot developer Gupshup Inc. said it is acquiring cloud communications startup Knowlarity Communications Pvt. to bolster its voice messaging and video solutions capabilities.

The purchase price is about $100 million, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named as the value isn’t public. Knowlarity specializes in cloud telephony as well as contact center automation and uses artificial intelligence to power its voice assistants, Gupshup said in a statement Wednesday, without disclosing how much it paid.

Gupshup, originating from India and now based in San Francisco, helps companies such as Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc develop customer relations chatbots on websites and services like WhatsApp. Voice-based conversational engagement will be a $18 billion global market by 2024, Gupshup said.

The company, which became a unicorn in 2021, supports businesses in sales, customer service, automated calling, feedback, logistics and remote work. This is its second acquisition in recent months, following the purchase of communications services platform Dotgo. Gupshup’s investors include Tiger Global and Fidelity Management, while Singapore-based Knowlarity is backed by Sequoia Capital.

Knowlarity has more than 6,000 business customers, including banks, consumer goods makers, information technology companies and health-care providers in over five dozen countries.

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