Case Study: Gupshup 2024

A longtime RLM client, Gupshup was founded in 2004 by Beerud Sheth. At the time, Sheth was recognized across the tech industry as “The guy who started Elance!” But RLM understood that he deserved much more credit. Sheth had been toiling in the artificial intelligence trenches for 20 years, going back to his days at MIT. Long before the days of ChatGPT, he recognized the transformative effect that chatbots would have on businesses and consumers.

Gupshup (which means “chit-chat” in Hindi) was quickly rising as the leading global chatbot development platform, sending over 10 billion messages per month and used by more than 45,000 brands across 60 countries. The company had a $340 million funding round in 2021, as well as a string of high-profile acquisitions. RLM’s mission was to establish Gupshup as the undisputed global leader in conversational AI—and to promote Sheth and his team as the industry’s definitive experts.

A significant angle of RLM’s outreach was Gupshup’s rapid growth. In 2021 alone, Gupshup had raised $340 million from investors such as Tiger Global, Fidelity Management, and more. As part of their AI marketing strategy, Gupshup also made a series of major acquisitions in the AI space, including Dotgo (RCS messaging), Knowlarity (voice technology), Active.ai (banking and retail), and AskSid (ecommerce and retail). RLM used these announcements to demonstrate Gupshup’s unequivocal leadership in the conversational AI space.

Another key strategy was offering Sheth and his team to discuss trending news stories on AI—especially the rise of generative AI in 2023. Having developed its own generative AI tools for businesses, Gupshup was the perfect source to explain how companies could successfully implement this technology to streamline their operations and improve their relationships with consumers. Additionally, RLM leveraged Sheth’s incredible 20-year entrepreneurial journey for profile pieces.

RLM also gained high-level press opportunities for Gupshup by setting up a string of successful media tours. During Sheth’s visits to major cities like New York, RLM offered in-person meetings to select business, finance, and technology reporters in those areas. The combination of Sheth’s esteemed status as a Silicon Valley veteran and his limited time in those cities made these meetings difficult for reporters to resist.

For years, RLM has successfully brought Gupshup consistent high-level press coverage in a variety of print, digital, and broadcast outlets. When Gupshup had its funding round, RLM secured announcements of the news in major business, finance, and technology publications, including Reuters, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, U.S. News & World Report, Benzinga, Crunchbase, Mergermarket, and more.RLM also obtained pickup of Gupshup’s acquisitions in top-tier outlets and trades alike, including The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, TechCrunch, PYMNTS, and Benzinga.

RLM’s media tours for Beerud were also a tremendous success, with Sheth meeting with reporters from The Verge, Adweek, MarketWatch, Entrepreneur, Reuters, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and more, as well as broadcast appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg Radio, and NASDAQ Trade Talks.

• 7+ thought leadership publications
• 10+ big outlet features
• 4+ broadcast appearances

Additionally, RLM secured thought leadership coverage for Sheth and his team in publications like Forbes, Vox, Morning Brew, Vogue, Built In, Marketing Dive, and siliconANGLE. And stories of Sheth’s incredible entrepreneurial journey resulted in profiles in Inc., Modern Professional, and more.