Social network for blood donation Socialblood raises funds from Rajan Anandan, Harvard Angels, others

Socialblood.org, a social network that connects blood donors and recipients of the same blood type using Facebook as a medium, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Rajan Anandan (MD, Google India), Karthik Reddy (Blume Ventures), and Ramesh Kumar Shah and Ravi Gururaj of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels. Details, including where the funds will be invested, are not available now.

The startup was founded in June 2011 by Karthik Naralasetty to combat deficiencies in the local system of blood transfusions. A dropout of Rutgers University, New Jersey (US), he is also the founder and CEO of a Bangalore-based technology company Redcode Informatics Pvt Ltd.

Interested individuals can connect with the company through Facebook or drop a mail at hello@socialblood.org (same goes for businesses as well). When we checked, the platform's community had 893 blood donors. For registering, users will have to provide details such as blood group, location, e-mail address and contact number.

Once registered, users can view donors (on a Google map) near their locations or check for donation requests (can be filtered according to blood group). The site also sends e-mail notifications for the same to users and they can decide the number of notifications they want to receive on a weekly basis.

For every donation request users respond to, they will earn Socialblood coins/coupons which can be redeemed at the company's partner outlets. If you cannot respond to a donation request, you can recommend a friend with the same blood group for providing the required blood. The news was first reported by TOI.

For making a donation request, users can either post on the community page of Socialblood on Facebook or can make a detailed request on the site. The request should include details such as blood type, requirement (red blood cells, plasma or whole blood), patient details (name and contact number), date of requirement, quantity required, name of the hospital and address as well as a brief description about the person who needs blood.

Users can also view a list of existing and past blood requests, and activate or deactivate a particular request. Besides, they can add other donors as friends or send them messages for the same.

"We aim to leverage digital social networks to find novel ways to connect people for a noble cause. We offer map-based integrated services so that you know whom to approach and it has all the benefits of a local blood bank," reads a message on the site.