Latest news with #LatinAmerica
Reuters
an hour ago
- Business
- Reuters
Iberdrola hired Barclays to sell assets in Mexico for $4.70 billion, El Confidencial says
July 23 (Reuters) - Europe's largest utility Iberdrola ( opens new tab hired investment bank Barclays to sell 15 renewable power plants in Mexico to exit the country, Spanish news website El Confidencial reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources close to the operation. Iberdrola's assets are worth about 4 billion euros ($4.70 billion), El Confidencial said, adding that the utility seeks to sell on concerns about the legal and tax stability in the country. Iberdrola already sold 55% of its assets in the country to the Mexican government for $6 billion in 2024, which the Mexican government called at the time a "new nationalisation" of the electricity market. The deal was in large part designed to give Mexico's state-owned power company Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) majority control over the local power market. Iberdrola declined to comment, while Barclays did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ($1 = 0.8518 euros)
Zawya
an hour ago
- Business
- Zawya
Gupshup Raises over $60mln from Globespan and EvolutionX
Funding will deepen market presence, win enterprise clients, and scale AI Agent adoption across India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa San Francisco/Mumbai – Gupshup, the global Conversational AI leader, today announced it has raised over $60 million in a funding round combining equity and debt financing from Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital. The funding will fuel the expansion of its Conversational AI and messaging platform as well as accelerate go-to-market execution across high-growth markets, including India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. This latest investment validates Gupshup's market leadership in helping businesses engage their customers through conversational AI experiences delivered via text messaging or voice. With 50,000+ customers in 130+ countries, Gupshup has consistently been recognized by industry analysts, including Gartner, IDC, and Juniper, for its outstanding AI capabilities and market leadership in the evolving Conversational AI landscape. Across marketing, sales, and support use cases, Gupshup is delivering measurable business impact such as substantially higher conversions and revenues, lower costs, and increased customer satisfaction. The funding will be strategically deployed to enhance sales velocity, product innovation, and deepen market presence across key verticals, globally. Gupshup is experiencing unprecedented demand for its platform, driven by the AI transformation across the world. 'Gupshup has turned the vision of Conversational AI into an enterprise-scale reality. We're proud to support their next phase of growth as they expand across emerging markets. With deep AI expertise, robust infrastructure, and relentless execution, Gupshup is redefining how businesses engage customers', said Andy Goldfarb, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Globespan Capital Partners. 'From India to UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil, Gupshup's Conversation Cloud and AI Agents are transforming customer and employee interactions. As Meta's Partner of the Year, they're building the foundation for AI-powered messaging at scale.' "Gupshup has been the market leader at every stage of industry evolution from basic messaging to conversational AI across text and voice, which has led to consistent revenue growth and margin expansion,' said Rahul Shah, Partner at EvolutionX Debt Capital." Gupshup is well-poised to lead the AI transformation worldwide, and we are excited to work with them and support them in this journey. With this investment, we continue our strategy of investing in category-leading growth stage companies in Asia'. "We're at an inflection point where AI Agents are transitioning from experimental technology to business-critical infrastructure, leading to extraordinary global demand for our solutions. Businesses recognize that conversational AI is driving enormous competitive advantages through superior customer experiences. This funding positions us to capture that global opportunity", said Beerud Sheth, Founder and CEO, Gupshup. The company's platform enables businesses to automate complex customer interactions while maintaining personalized, human-like conversations. Through solutions like Conversational AI Agents, Click to Chat Ads, AI Campaign CoPilot, Agent Assist, Personalize, and Campaign Manager, businesses can handle everything from product discovery and purchasing to customer support and retention, representing a significant evolution from traditional chatbots to autonomous agents. Gupshup's platform already powers 120 Billion+ messages annually for thousands of enterprises, with advanced AI capabilities that position it as the comprehensive solution for businesses seeking to implement conversational engagement at scale. About Gupshup Gupshup is the leading conversational AI platform for marketing, commerce, and support automation. Our Conversation Cloud powers multimodal interactions with industry-trained AI agents so that businesses can go live faster across channels, including Voice, WhatsApp, RCS, Web, Mobile Apps, and more. Trusted by 50,000+ customers in 130+ countries across industries, Gupshup handles 120 Billion+ messages annually. Gupshup works with many of the top brands across industries, including e-commerce, retail, payments, fintech, payments, media, travel, automotive, and banking, to deliver transformative conversational experiences that drive growth and optimize costs. About Globespan Capital Partners Globespan Capital Partners is a leading growth-stage venture capital firm that has backed global category leaders including Palo Alto Networks, Upwork, and Roku. With a global network of institutional investors across the U.S., Japan, Europe, and the Middle East, Globespan actively supports its portfolio companies in international scaling and market expansion. The firm focuses on high-impact investments in AI, SaaS, fintech, and infrastructure that reshape how businesses grow, operate, and engage with customers. About EvolutionX Debt Capital EvolutionX Debt Capital is the leading debt financing platform for growth-stage companies across sectors in Asia, with a focus on India, Southeast Asia, China and GCC. Founded by DBS and Temasek, the Fund seeks to accelerate the growth of Asia's economy by investing into next generation market leaders across sectors such as technology, financial services, consumer, healthcare, IT/BPO, EVs, data centers and other new economy sectors. For more information, refer to
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Gupshup raises $60M in equity and debt, leaves unicorn status hanging
Gupshup, a business messaging startup that began its journey in India over two decades ago and became a unicorn four years ago, has raised a new over $60 million round — but is keeping its new valuation under wraps. In 2021, Gupshup raised two funding rounds within four months, securing $340 million from prominent investors including Tiger Global, Fidelity Management, Think Investments, and Malabar Investments. These rounds — the startup's first in roughly a decade — valued Gupshup at $1.4 billion. However, Fidelity, which led the round following its unicorn milestone, slashed its internal valuation of the startup at least three times between 2023 and 2024, bringing it down to as low as $486 million. The new funding round, which combines equity and debt financing from Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital, aims to help the San Francisco-headquartered startup expand its presence across its high-growth markets, including India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. The startup would not reveal the exact debt portion although its founder and CEO Beerud Seth told TechCrunch that the equity part is 'a little more than half.' In 2004, Gupshup — derived from Indian slang meaning 'conversations' — started as a platform to help businesses connect with their customers through text messages. It gained popularity as text messages were not free at the time, and people were seeking ways to send messages to their friends and community groups. However, as communication shifted from short messaging service (SMS) to WhatsApp and Rich Communication Services (RCS), the startup moved to these avenues with its chatbot services. Now, as AI has become a catchall term, and AI agents — software that can perform specific tasks on behalf of users — have emerged everywhere, Gupshup has started enabling businesses to deploy agents. 'There's a lot of demand coming from enterprises. Everybody needs to build these AI agents, which work through messaging like RCS and WhatsApp or through voice. So, building out these agents, there's huge demand, and we need to support it,' Seth said. Globally, AI agents are gaining traction, with startups building them drawing strong investor interest. Tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are also exploring how to bring more of these agents to users through their own platforms. The result: competition is heating up. Gupshup does not view the rising competition as a threat. Seth pointed to the startup's substantial install base — which exceeds 50,000 customers across more than 100 countries — and its track record of product innovation, driven by years of experience in business messaging, strategic acquisitions, and internal R&D. 'Businesses cannot use simple foundation models off the shelf and just put them in front of customers. They need a lot of customization to be done, and that's where Gupshup comes in. That's what we provide,' he noted. Since its last round in July 2021, the startup 'tripled' its revenue and grew its profitability, Sheth said. However, it is unclear whether that resulted in an increased valuation, as, he said, this latest round was not priced. 'As a founder, you focus on value, and the valuation will follow,' Seth said when asked whether he still considers the startup a unicorn. 'We operate ourselves like we are going to be a big company.' Alongside expanding geographically, the startup aims to utilize its fresh funding to enhance its products, which are used in industries including automotive, banking, e-commerce, fintech, media, payments, retail, and travel. Its products also include click-to-chat ads, an AI campaign copilot, agent assist, and campaign manager. Gupshup claims to power over 120 billion messages annually for thousands of enterprises. Looking ahead, the startup sees an IPO as its next major milestone. 'We're talking to all our advisors, lawyers, bankers, accountants, and so on, to figure this out,' Seth said. The startup has no specific timeline for its public listing, although Seth told TechCrunch that it could happen in 18–24 months. Gupshup is exploring whether it should list on Indian stock exchanges — a move that makes strategic sense, as the startup views India, where WhatsApp dominates, as a more favorable market. Among the reasons: it's easier to communicate its story to local retail investors, who are more familiar with WhatsApp and understand how Gupshup's products, including its AI agents, operate within the platform. However, since Gupshup is domiciled in the U.S., a flip to India would trigger tax liabilities, which could require additional funding. The IPO 'is the one thing that we don't control entirely. The calendar depends as much on external factors as it does on the company,' Seth said. Sign in to access your portfolio
TechCrunch
2 hours ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Gupshup raises $60M in equity and debt, leaves unicorn status hanging
Gupshup, a business messaging startup that began its journey in India over two decades ago and became a unicorn four years ago, has raised a new over $60 million round — but is keeping its new valuation under wraps. In 2021, Gupshup raised two funding rounds within four months, securing $340 million from prominent investors including Tiger Global, Fidelity Management, Think Investments, and Malabar Investments. These rounds — the startup's first in roughly a decade — valued Gupshup at $1.4 billion. However, Fidelity, which led the round following its unicorn milestone, slashed its internal valuation of the startup at least three times between 2023 and 2024, bringing it down to as low as $486 million. The new funding round, which combines equity and debt financing from Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital, aims to help the San Francisco-headquartered startup expand its presence across its high-growth markets, including India, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. The startup would not reveal the exact debt portion although its founder and CEO Beerud Seth told TechCrunch that the equity part is 'a little more than half.' In 2004, Gupshup — derived from Indian slang meaning 'conversations' — started as a platform to help businesses connect with their customers through text messages. It gained popularity as text messages were not free at the time, and people were seeking ways to send messages to their friends and community groups. However, as communication shifted from short messaging service (SMS) to WhatsApp and Rich Communication Services (RCS), the startup moved to these avenues with its chatbot services. Now, as AI has become a catchall term, and AI agents — software that can perform specific tasks on behalf of users — have emerged everywhere, Gupshup has started enabling businesses to deploy agents. 'There's a lot of demand coming from enterprises. Everybody needs to build these AI agents, which work through messaging like RCS and WhatsApp or through voice. So, building out these agents, there's huge demand, and we need to support it,' Seth said. Globally, AI agents are gaining traction, with startups building them drawing strong investor interest. Tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are also exploring how to bring more of these agents to users through their own platforms. The result: competition is heating up. Techcrunch event Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. San Francisco | REGISTER NOW Gupshup does not view the rising competition as a threat. Seth pointed to the startup's substantial install base — which exceeds 50,000 customers across more than 100 countries — and its track record of product innovation, driven by years of experience in business messaging, strategic acquisitions, and internal R&D. 'Businesses cannot use simple foundation models off the shelf and just put them in front of customers. They need a lot of customization to be done, and that's where Gupshup comes in. That's what we provide,' he noted. Since its last round in July 2021, the startup 'tripled' its revenue and grew its profitability, Sheth said. However, it is unclear whether that resulted in an increased valuation, as, he said, this latest round was not priced. 'As a founder, you focus on value, and the valuation will follow,' Seth said when asked whether he still considers the startup a unicorn. 'We operate ourselves like we are going to be a big company.' Alongside expanding geographically, the startup aims to utilize its fresh funding to enhance its products, which are used in industries including automotive, banking, e-commerce, fintech, media, payments, retail, and travel. Its products also include click-to-chat ads, an AI campaign copilot, agent assist, and campaign manager. Gupshup claims to power over 120 billion messages annually for thousands of enterprises. Looking ahead, the startup sees an IPO as its next major milestone. 'We're talking to all our advisors, lawyers, bankers, accountants, and so on, to figure this out,' Seth said. The startup has no specific timeline for its public listing, although Seth told TechCrunch that it could happen in 18–24 months. Gupshup is exploring whether it should list on Indian stock exchanges — a move that makes strategic sense, as the startup views India, where WhatsApp dominates, as a more favorable market. Among the reasons: it's easier to communicate its story to local retail investors, who are more familiar with WhatsApp and understand how Gupshup's products, including its AI agents, operate within the platform. However, since Gupshup is domiciled in the U.S., a flip to India would trigger tax liabilities, which could require additional funding. The IPO 'is the one thing that we don't control entirely. The calendar depends as much on external factors as it does on the company,' Seth said.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
PayPal taps wallets from China and India to make cross-border payments easier for 2 billion people
PayPal announced Wednesday it has partnered with global wallet companies to create a platform called PayPal World that is designed to make cross-border commerce easier. The platform will allow users to pay others using their local wallets and payment systems. The company said the launch partners include India's NPCI International Payments Limited, which operates mobile payments framework UPI (Unified Payment Interface), China's Tenpay Global (Tencent's Payment arm), which operates Weixin (WeChat) payment ecosystem in the country, along with PayPal and Venmo. The company has also signed an memorandum of understanding with Latin America's Mercado Pago, a fintech company that enables card and mobile payments, while the final details of the deals are being ironed out. With these partnerships, PayPal wants to cover more than two billion users across the world. 'PayPal World is a first-of-its-kind payments ecosystem that will bring together many of the world's largest payment systems and digital wallets on a single platform,' Alex Chriss, President and CEO of PayPal said in a statement. 'The challenge of moving money across borders is incredibly complex, and yet this platform will make it so simple for nearly two billion consumers and businesses. We believe the changes we are announcing today have the potential to be a real game changer over time.' The fintech company said that through PayPal World, PayPal and Venmo users will be able to send money to anyone in the world, even if they aren't a PayPal user. For instance, when they are traveling in China, they can use PayPal on the Wexin payment network to pay to local businesses. On the flip side, if a customer from India is buying from a site in the U.S., they can use PayPal to check out and pay through their UPI wallet. Total user base and transaction volume of these wallet systems are massive. For instance, Mercado Pago's total payment volume was $58.3 billion in the first quarter of 2025. In India, UPI transactions hit more than $238 billion just for the month of June, according to NPCI data. China's Tenpay is also working on creating a better remittance framework along with enabling cross-border peer-to-peer payments. 'We are glad that Tenpay Global, Tencent's cross-border payment platform, will support users of PayPal and Venmo in making payments by scanning Weixin Pay1 QR codes, further expanding access for global digital wallets to transact in the mainland of China. In addition to payments, Tenpay Global will deepen its collaboration with PayPal World in remittances,' Wenhui Yang, CEO of Tenpay Global, said. PayPal World is set to kick off the platform this fall with its launch partners. The company said that in 2026, Venmo users will be able to pay for shopping both online and offline for merchants that support PayPal's payments. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
