Digital marketing startup Mobikon raises $1.7M from Jungle Ventures, others

Mobikon Asia Pte Ltd, a digital marketing startup located in India and Singapore and offering an integrated digital marketing and customer engagement platform for the hospitality and retail industry, has raised $1.7 million (Rs 9.4 crore) in a Series A round led by Singapore-based Jungle Ventures. Super angel investors including Ravi Mantha, a member of the board of trustees at The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), and others also took part in the round.

Samir Khadepaun, CEO and co-founder of Mobikon, said, "The funds will be used for expansion in India and across South-east Asia. We are opening new offices in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi, as well as in Thailand, Indonesia and Australia. The India offices will be operational by the end of next month while others will start functioning by the end of this year.

"We will also spend on marketing and talent acquisition. Before raising the funds, our team included around 15 people. The team size has already gone up to 30 and we are looking to scale it up to 50 within the next three quarters," he added. The company is aiming to become a pan-Asia player in Cloud-based digital marketing and customer engagement platform.

Set up by Khadepaun and Salil Khamkar in 2009, Mobikon is headquartered in Singapore and also has offices in Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Surat. Currently, it has 30 people on board.

The startup's flagship product is KONEKT – an integrated suite of digital marketing, analytics and customer engagement applications that the company claims are used by over 100 hotels, restaurants and spas such as Little Italy, Royal Orchid and Keys Hotel Group in India, as well as facilities in South-east Asia, Africa and Australia. However, most of its customers are from India only (around 75 per cent).

Mobikon's product range includes guest feedback systems, restaurant concierge and banquet booking systems, mobile engagement ticker and digital CRM. These enable hospitality and retail customers to connect with their consumers by acquiring consumer data and engaging with them via social, mobile and Web channels. According to Khadepaun, the company is also planning to launch a new product called Connect Concierge by the end of this month, but refused to share more details.

The current investment would last a year after which the company would be raising another round upwards of $5 million, said Khadepaun.

Jungle Ventures is a venture capital firm in Singapore that provides early-stage investments and business-building infrastructure to startups across the Asia Pacific. The firm focuses on early-stage funding across Singapore, India and the South-east Asia.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)