SANTA CLARA, Calif. & MUMBAI, India--()--SMS GupShup, India’s largest social network, announces today that they have closed funding for a $12 million round led by Globespan Capital Partners and additional financing from existing investors Charles River Ventures and Helion Venture Partners.
“SMS GupShup is bringing social messaging to the mobile masses. It is on track to be the next big global, social, mobile play. We are excited to be joining forces with this team to get billions of users to start ‘gupshupping’.”
This funding will allow SMS GupShup to expand into new territories, and to roll out new features such as Mobile CRM solutions for small businesses and corporate brands. As one of the fastest growing ad-supported mobile communities in the world, SMS GupShup already enjoys a larger market share of users in India than any other online or mobile social networking site. The company also offers reply-all group messaging service in partnership with mobile carriers. The company is now poised to expand globally, starting with emerging markets that have high mobile adoption.
Launched in April 2007, SMS GupShup now serves 26 million users in over 2 million communities – double the number of communities supported just six months ago. These communities range from religious groups to sports teams to celebrities. Whether it’s daily poems, traffic reports or tribal news, GupShup is the centerpiece of connectivity in India. Over 100 advertisers currently run on the network including local insurance provider ICICI Lombard and international brands like Puma, Microsoft and Cadbury.
The company is growing at a rapid pace and now accounts for 5% of all text messages sent in India. Earlier this year, the company inked a deal with Facebook to enable Indian Facebook users to go mobile.
The mobile subscriber base in 2013 is set to exceed 771 million in India, according to Gartner Inc, and 5.8 billion globally, according to Portio Research.
Co-founder and chief executive Beerud Sheth says, “Our user base and revenues have grown substantially over the last year and we are also seeing strong interest from carriers worldwide. We expect to use the proceeds from this funding round to accelerate our growth and expand our operations globally, to make our products useful to each of the 4 billion mobile subscribers worldwide.”
To date, SMS GupShup has raised $37 million in funding and is now aggressively hiring. In only the past two months the service has increased its team headcount from 100 to 130 and is looking to fill another 20 positions in marketing, engineering and advertising sales.
Venky Ganesan, Managing Director, Globespan Capital, said, “SMS GupShup is bringing social messaging to the mobile masses. It is on track to be the next big global, social, mobile play. We are excited to be joining forces with this team to get billions of users to start ‘gupshupping’.”
“Since we last invested, SMS GupShup has shown huge growth in number of users and revenues. We’re excited to re-invest again to help the business realize its global potential as the social messaging solution for the masses,” said Devdutt Yellurkar of Charles River Ventures.
As part of this funding round, Venky Ganesan, Managing Director of Globespan Capital Partners, will join the SMS GupShup Board of Directors, which currently comprises of Devdutt Yellurkar (Charles River Ventures), Ashish Gupta (Helion Venture Partners), Jeff Hussey (Founder of F5 Networks, Inc.), Rakesh Mathur (Co-founder and Chairman of the Board) and Beerud Sheth (Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer).
About SMS GupShup
SMS GupShup is the world’s largest social SMS service that allows users to communicate and connect with family, friends and fans using mobile handsets. SMS GupShup extends the capabilities of p2p sms technology to social messaging including 1-to-many, many-to-many and many-to-1 communication, thereby enabling social interactions on sms, the only medium that reaches 4 billion users worldwide. Launched in April 2007, it is used by 26 million users in over 2 million communities.
About Globespan Capital Partners
Globespan Capital Partners is a leading global venture capital firm with over $1 Billion under active management. Globespan takes a balanced approach to investing with multi-stage investments in information technology and cleantech companies. Our investment team has a proven track record based on partnering with management teams to build strong, successful companies. We have significant experience and relationships in Asia which allows us to provide our portfolio companies access to global markets. With offices in Boston, Palo Alto and Tokyo, we invest in companies all across the U.S. and in Japan on behalf of a global base of limited partners. More information about Globespan Capital Partners is located online at www.globespancapital.com.
About Charles River Ventures
Founded in 1970, Charles River Ventures is one of the nation’s oldest and most successful early-stage venture capital firms with approximately $2.1 billion under management. CRV is dedicated to helping exceptional entrepreneurs turn their ideas into the next category leaders in high growth technology and media sectors. Over the past 10 years, CRV funds have been ranked among the industry’s top performers. CRV has offices in Boston, MA and Menlo Park, CA. For more information, visit www.crv.com.
About Helion Venture Partners
Helion Venture Partners is a multi-stage, India-focused venture fund with $350 million under management. The fund invests in businesses that are either technology-powered or catering to the Indian consumer services space. The focus sectors of investment include - outsourcing, internet, mobile, technology products, retail services, education and financial services. The fund’s investors are well-respected Global institutions including top tier University endowment funds, Foundations and family offices. The fund and its portfolio companies are advised by an experienced and industry renowned team of professionals based in India which include Sanjeev Aggarwal, Ashish Gupta, Kanwaljit Singh and Rahul Chandra. For more information visit http://helionvc.com/
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