Breaking: SMSGupshup/Webaroo Raises $10mn Funding
We have learnt that SMSGupshup has raised funding in the range of ~$10mn . The investors aren’t yet known (see below for details) , but the deal will be signed very soon.
Update1: The investment news is confirmed (though the amount isn’t). Helion and Charles River Ventures participated in this round (each $5mn) amounting the deal to 10mn$ (we still haven’t got any confirmation on the numbers).
Congrats to webaroo team – the co. started as an offline webpage idea and understood pretty early in the cycle that they need to change track.
Interestingly, Rediff recently invested in Vakow, a sms community (centered towards forwarding jokes), a startup by ex-webaroo employees.
Webaroo investment reinforces my earlier belief on rise of mobile communities in India (and death of online communities, the so-called socoinets)
Check out few interesting smsgupshup communities
Update2: The invested amount is $11mn.
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Related posts:
- Finally, Helion and CRV Confirm smsgupshup funding
- Webaroo morphs into SMSGupshup..to move office to India
- SMSGupShup Raises $12mn From Globespan Capital Partner, CRV and Helion
- SMSGupShup opens up..launches developer platform [SMS based widgets]
- Exclusive: SMSgupshup users can send picture messages…and 1:1 SMSes too
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
wow, its more than mingle box and guruji. great.
Knew this was coming with their post on venture beat! Must have closed this deal much before that post…
[...] Webaroo has raised $10 Million in funding from Helion Venture Partners and Charles River Ventures, according to Pluggd.in. The report is unconfirmed, and though we’ve tried, we haven’t yet received a [...]
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[...] round of funding for their product SMSGupShup, an SMS-based community site in India, according to Plugged.in. The round, the third for the company, was co-led by Helion Venture Partners and Charles River [...]
Is it really so? Interesting, but I don’t think that online communities will die so soon at least, though sms communities will have major share!
[...] round of funding for their product SMSGupShup, an SMS-based community site in India, according to Plugged.in. The round, the third for the company, was co-led by Helion Venture Partners and Charles River [...]
[...] Ashish Sinha | Oct 07 2008 | Funding | Email This Post We broke the news few months back, and everybody said it ain’t true. Couple of bloggers ‘personally’ [...]
[...] available even when they had 1M users but the valuations were not very attractive. We broke the news few months back, and everybody said it ain’t true. Couple of bloggers ‘personally’ confirmed (and [...]