Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

Mobile application developer - Twist Mobile, an Indore based mobile apps company has raised undisclosed amount in series A round from  Matrix Partners.  Rishi Navani and Vikram Vaidyanathan  from Matrix partners would join the board of Twist Mobile. Primarily investments will be utilized in promoting the apps and expanding in International location.

Virat Khutal founded Twist Mobile in 2009 and worked with telecom operators but failed to generate traction, Twist Mobile tasted success in its developed apps on smart phones. Twist Mobile apps are centered towards Nokia app store -Ovi, and Dragger is their most popular apps.  The company has reached 73 Mn downloads.

Twist Mobile is planning to set up office in Vietnam with about 30 employees. The company plans to develop apps and content delivery for low end devices like Symbian series 40 and developing city based applications with Local Content for rural India.

Indian mobile app developers are attracting a lot of investor interest.

Recently, Bangalore based United Mobile Apps has raised $1Mn Series A funding from Mumbai Angels. Last year, One97 Mobility Fund invested in Kerala based mobile app developer Dexetra Software Solutions Pvt Ltd.Onward Mobility Solution Private Limited raised Rs.18 Cr series A funding from IndoUS Venture Partners and Qualcomm Ventures.

Matrix Partners had earlier invested in Verse.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Quikr, an online classified site headquartered in Mumbai raises $32M led by PE firm Warburg Pincus.  This round was a series E round and earlier Quikr had raised investments from Omdiyar Networks, Norwest Ventures, Matrix Partners and eBay. Existing investors also participated in this round. Nitin Nayar, Managing Director of Warburg Pincus comes on the board of Quikr.

It was launched as Kijiji.in on eBay global classified platform and was renamed as Quikr in late 2008. Quikr is currently present in over 40 cities across India.

Quikr provides the local community with a platform to help them buy, sell, rent and find something and address needs across many categories. These categories range from Mobiles, real estate, cars, services, jobs, entertainment, furniture, electronics etc. The company is also exploring the potential of introducing other categories like financial services.

Quikr monetizes from placement of ads in its section, Premium advertisements increase the ad visibility and help reach out to more consumers. The price for these ads varies according to the category of the product or service.

Lets look at the monthly web traction at Quikr :

Worldwide Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 140K 11M Unique visitors (users) 47K 5M Page views 420K 45M Total visits 120K 11M Avg visits per cookie 0.91 1 Avg time on site 4:00 5:20

Seeing the web traction, Quikr money spent on online advertisement and TVC is paying off

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Mumbai Angels, a network of individuals that invests in start-up and early stage companies, has invested over Rs 4.5 crore in DEXL Education Services India Pvt Ltd, a tutoring institute that prepares students for examinations such as the IIT-JEE.

The investment (of over $1 million) done in two stages has just been concluded and the money will be used to expand infrastructure, build a team, business promotion and working capital, according to a representative from Mumbai Angels.

Mumbai Angels, however, did not disclose the equity stake that it will be picking up in DEXL.

Mr Alok Agarwal, Mr Ajit Surana, Mr Anand Ladsariya and Mr Nilesh Shah have joined DEXL’s board and Mr Anil Joshi as observer, to represent the investors from Mumbai Angels.

Angel investors are wealthy individuals who invest in start-up and early-stage companies, mentor them and help them grow. These investors also organise themselves into groups or networks.

Mumbai Angels perceive DEXL as a high quality early stage company with potential for scaling up and profitable growth. It believed that DEXL would redefine the test preparation services space with superior quality.

DEXL is founded by P K Sharma with large group of academicians with vast teaching experience. It trains over 1,000 students in over 40 classrooms at 14 locations in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and over 5,000 students through distance learning and online test preparation.

Classroom Test Preparation has witnessed series of investments – Matrix partners invested Rs. 100Cr in FIT-JEE, Career Point raised Rs 50Cr from Fidelity investments before going public.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Matrix Partners has invested an undisclosed amount in Ace2Three online gaming portal which is operated and run by Hyderabad based Head Infotech Pvt. Ltd. With this investment Avnish Bajaj takes a board seat in Head Infotech.

Ace2three is an online Rummy game, Rummy is a very popular cards game in India. Ace2Three.com is promoted by Deepak Gullapalli and Anand Nagloor (both are ex-PartyGaming executives). Ace2three is a 3 yr old gaming portal, and user can play online or has an option to download the game and play.

“Online gaming has a lot of potential and Rummy is an addictive, sticky game. A single user plays an average of 10 games per day,” said Deepak.

Lets look at the monthly traction at Ace2Three -

Unique visitors (estimated cookies)	40K
Unique visitors (users)	44K
Page views	350K
Total visits	77K
Avg visits per visitor	1.7
Avg time on site	7:30

As per the above data, ace2three witnesses 44k monthly users. Ace2three makes revenue per every download and also monetizes from rummy tournaments it organizes on its platform with real cash awards.

Are we seeing India as a gaming hub?

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Quikr, India’s leading horizontal classifieds player, has raised $6 million in series C funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), and returning investors, Omidyar Network, Matrix Partners India and eBay Inc. With this round of financing, Quikr has raised in excess of Rs 50 crore since inception. Norwest Venture Partners, which led the round, has invested about $4 million.

Quikr offers a web-based classifieds platform that addresses the needs of local communities in 40 cities across India. More than 8 million consumers visit Quikr every month to buy, sell, rent or find things.

Above figure compares the traction at Quickr, Sulekha and ClickIndia.

Interestingly NVP is an existing investor in Sulekha, another classified portal. Local classifieds portals are becoming hot favorites for investors. Earlier Helion invested in GETIT, Sequoia capital raised their equity in Justdial and NVP invested in OLX.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com