Gupshup acquires New Jersey-based RBM player Dotgo for undisclosed sum

Conversational messaging unicorn Gupshup has acquired New Jersey-based Dotgo, a rich communications system (RCS) business messaging (RBM) player, for geographical and business expansion.

A strong partner of Google, Mavenir, Synchronoss, Vodafone, and Orange, Dotgo manages RBM in several markets, and operates the world’s largest RBM Hub with global connectivity to RCS users across the world.

Dotgo is well positioned to help brands integrate, with simple APIs, the RCS channel into their customer communications, whether for sales, support, services, or other business processes.

The transaction value was not disclosed.

According to Google Jibe, the RCS communications team at the tech giant, RCS "upgrades SMS with branding, rich media, interactivity and analytics. With RCS, businesses can bring branded, interactive mobile experiences, right to the default messaging app".

Dotgo, a Cohort-6 graduate of the IIT Startups accelerator, has a Messaging-as-a-Platform (MaaP), offered in partnership with, and pre-integrated with, Google Jibe platform, has been selected to operate RCS business messaging at several mobile operators. The company grew rapidly in 2021 as RCS gained traction in North America, Europe, India, Brazil, and Nigeria.

Dotgo will significantly strengthen Gupshup’s conversational messaging platform that enables businesses and developers to build rich customer experiences. Gupshup also plans to leverage Dotgo’s strong experience and presence in Africa to expand there.

“Conversational experiences are becoming the key to business-customer interactions, and the RCS messaging channel is a critical enabler.” said Beerud Sheth, co-founder and CEO, Gupshup. “Dotgo’s product innovation, market traction and thought leadership in the RCS ecosystem is truly impressive. Together, we’ll be able to offer a broader range of conversational messaging solutions to businesses and developers. We are excited to welcome them to the Gupshup family.”

Inderpal Singh Mumick, co-founder and CEO of Dotgo said “RCS business messaging is destined to change the way businesses communicate with their customers. We started Dotgo to create APIs that make it easy for brands and other players in the ecosystem to adopt RCS, while taking care of and hiding all the backend complexity from our customers. With the addition of RCS, Gupshup will undoubtedly be the strongest IP messaging company, and thus helps us accelerate our mission.”

RCS will be a key messaging channel in Gupshup’s Conversational Messaging Platform, supplementing 30 other messaging channels available to customers via Gupshup’s Single API for messaging. RCS, a part of the 5G standard, is the next generation of SMS that includes pictures, audio, video, and presence, combined with enhanced security and encryption. RCS messages are delivered to native messaging apps such as Google Business Messages and Samsung Messages on Android phones.

Johanna Kollar, Partnerships Lead, Communication Products, Google said “We congratulate Dotgo and Gupshup on this acquisition. We have worked closely with Dotgo, and are very impressed by the quality of their products and services. We look forward to growing our relationship as the Dotgo team becomes a part of Gupshup."

RCS Business Messaging uses the rich and interactive features of RCS to enable branded and secure business messaging. RCS is available globally with over 600 million monthly active users, including about 20 per cent of India’s smartphone users.