Shaadi.com Founder Anupam Mittal has led a consortium of 16 investors to invest $500,000 (about Rs 3.34 crore) in Bengaluru-based camera and photo sharing app Vebbler.
The investors included Sharad Sharma, Founder of industry think tank iSPIRIT, and Pranav Rai, son of former Infosys board member Mohandas Pai, along with a string of high net worth individuals from the US, West Asia and Singapore.
Vebbler allows people to instantly share photos with each other in real time. “We started as a web platform and have been bootstrapped so far,” said Sahil Bhagat, CEO of Vebbler who leads a group of under-25s who have together built the product within a year.
“The funds raised will go towards expanding the team, which comprises 15 people, and in marketing campaigns,” he said. The startup launched in private beta on July 23, 2013 has 1,00,000 users for its web platform and has achieved 50,000 sign-ups for the mobile app in the past two weeks.
At present, the company is working on introducing new features such as video optimisation, which will enable people to share videos within clubs. It also plans to introduce club codes or QR codes which will help pubs, wedding organisers, travel groups and others to easily invite people into a club by simply scanning a QR code.
Vebbler’s mobile application is built on the Crowd Layering Model (CLM) which allows segregation of content sharing based on user groups and interests. It allows users to organise people in clubs, so they can add a person into different layers, such as friends, family, workmates and acquaintances.
The company is working on adding features such as location-based sharing, automated clubs and photo enhancing technology.
Photo sharing apps are a rage across the world, with the most valuable startup being Snapchat, which raised $1.81 billion in a fresh round of funding this year and Instagram, which was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion.
Other apps include Cluster, which is funded by Instagram seed investor Steve Anderson, Japanese app Snapee and Splash.
Source: The Economic Times
