Mobile community and blogging platform SMS GupShup announced it had received investment of US$11 million from Helion Ventures and Charles River Ventures (CRV) to fund business growth and product development, as reported in the Business Standard.
The Indian startup has, according to some estimates back in June, 3 times the usage of Twitter and almost 7 times as many subscribers. SMS GupShup claims to have over 12 million unique users in over 500 thousand communities ranging from finance, entertainment, business, news, education, spiritual and health.
SMS GupShup is a service operated by Webaroo and provides a platform to enable advertising to target communities to increase brand awareness and engagement. “The investment will enable SMS GupShup to innovate faster and deliver great products to consumers, advertisers and enterprises,” SMS GupShup president Beerud Sheth said.
Since its launch in 2006, Helion has invested in 11 companies including JiGrahak, makemytrip.com, UnitedLex, Gridstone, Anantara, Zmanda, Kirusa, Komli, Hurix, Amba Research and Mindworks Global Media Service.
Hyderabad-based eYantra, an online brand merchandising and corporate gifting solutions company, has announced it secured US$3.1 million in Series A funding from Ventureast and Argonaut. eYantra may have reportedly diluted around 15-18% stake for this round.
The funds will be used to consolidate market leadership, acquiring new clientele, launch of e-commerce initiatives, creating an intelligent customer analytics engine and building a world class distribution centre in Hyderabad, apart from geographical diversification.
eYantra’s turnover has reportedly grown rapidly from Rs 70 lakh in 2001 to Rs 25 crores in 2007. The company will be setting up an apparel manufacturing facility, which will have a capacity of 600,000 T-shirts a year and plans to set up office in Connecticut, US. In June 2007, media house Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd. acquired a minority stake in the company.
eYantra was founded in 2000 by Mr Phani N Raj an ex-consultant with Price Waterhouse Coopers, USA, in a strategic tie-up with 750 Crores TGV Group of Hyderabad and provides customized merchandise and apparel for major corporate houses & blue chip companies in Hyderabad & Bangalore.
