Data platform for mobile marketing Vserv raises $15M from Maverick Capital & IDG

Mumbai-based smart data platform for mobile marketing Vserv, has raised $15 million (Rs 91 crore) from hedge fund Maverick Capital Ventures and existing investor IDG Ventures, as per a company statement.

Techcircle.in has first reported that Vserv is in talks to raise $15 million in its Series B funding.

"Maverick brings in capital and deep technology domain expertise. With this funding, we will build the smart data platform for mobile marketing across India and Southeast Asia and will strengthen our data analytics platform," Dippak Khurana, co-founder of Vserv, told Techcircle.in.

"We are highly impressed with the rapid pace of Vserv's growth, its smart data platform and management team. Vserv is uniquely positioned to drive the mobile internet ecosystem in India and Southeast Asia through their exceptional data assets," Matthew Kinsella, managing director, Maverick Capital Ventures, said.

Vserv had previously raised $3 million from IDG Ventures and Epiphany Ventures.

The company was founded in January 2010 by Dippak Khurana, a management graduate along with computer engineer Ashay Padwal. Khurana has previously worked at People Group across various positions before quitting as business head - content & international operations. He had also worked at Yahoo India, Intercept Technologies, India Today and Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd.

Padwal had worked at People Group and Yahoo besides eMediCare Services and Mega E Services.

Vserv's flagship platform, AudienceProTM, ties together data from multiple sources such as offline and online marketers, telecom operators, mobile app developers and other third-party sources. The platform then creates user personas and triggers real time intent signals thereby enabling unprecedented discovery, analysis and monetisation of end users.

It mines data to deliver mobile marketing for over 500 clients across sectors like consumer goods, e-commerce, retail, telecom, banking & financial services, mobile entertainment and gaming.

While Vserv had close to 100 customers at the end of second year of operations, it is currently serving 2,200 customers globally daily. The company is looking to cross $100 million in revenue by 2015 end. It has over 200 employees.

This is Maverick's first investment in India. It has a history of investing early in large scale mobile platforms globally. Its portfolio companies include mobile remittances firm Regalii, mobile analytics & marketing platform Upsight Inc and messaging app Kakao Corp. Maverick has over $8 billion in assets.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)