SMS GupShup, a Twitter-like service in India that is primarily accessed via SMS, has raised $12 million in funding. The startup plans to use this in expansion into other markets such as the Philippines and Indonesia, for product development and to hire new staff in engineering, advertising and marketing.
With the latest capital raising, the total funding SMS GupShup has managed till date is $ 37 million.
In a venture capitalist world which is hard on start-ups, SMS GupShup managed to get that much funding because of the following factors:
Launched in April 2007, SMS GupShup (parent entity Webaroo ) presently serves 26 million users across India.
Because of the immense reach and popularity of mobile devices in India the startup has seen rapid growth in its user base.
According to the startup, there are 550 million mobile phone users in the country and only 50 million web users. With a 10 to 1 mobile-to-PC ratio ; SMS serves as the most popular communications platform. SMS GupShup currently processes over 480 million messages a month and accounts for 5 percent of all texts sent within India.
With 550 million mobile users, and the user base the company has at present. There’s much scope of growth in coming years.
Big guns in social networking like Facebook have already acknowledged the potential of SMS GupShup.The fund providers are aware of the growth potential of Social networking in countries like India,Philippines,Indonesia and other like countries.
The company is already generating revenue from advertising and currently has well over 100 advertisers which include companies like Puma, Microsoft and Cadbury.
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