Social media management startup Crowdfire raises $2.5M in Series A funding from Kalaari Capital

Mumbai-based Codigami Technologies Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates social media management startup Crowdfire, has raised $2.5 million in its Series A round of funding from Kalaari Capital.

The funds will be used for team expansion and developing marketing tools for Twitter and Instagram.

"We believe it's time for products built in India to become leaders globally and in the social media space we want Crowdfire to be such a product," said Nischal Shetty, founder of Crowdfire, in a statement.

Founded in 2010 by Nischal Shetty, the startup was known as JustUnfollow till recently (February 2015). An engineer from Visvesvaraya Technological University, Shetty had earlier also founded Twi5, which lets users search for Twitter apps.

Crowdfire helps Twitter and Instagram users know about spam followers, people who unfollowed them, and inactive users, etc. It also enables users to find Twitter users nearby and schedule posts for Instagram, among other features.

It directs other users through a 'Clean-Engage-Grow' social media cycle to improve marketing results.

"We are excited about mobile-first products and see a lot of potential in the social media marketing landscape. With Crowdfire straddling both and given the pace at which it is growing, we are pleased to partner with it and are very positive about its potential," said Vani Kola, MD of Kalaari.

The startup claims to currently have 10 million Twitter and Instagram users, of which 350,000 are active daily users, while 3 million are active monthly. It is available on the web, as well as on Android and iOS platforms. The company also claims that over 75 per cent of its daily signups are through mobile.

It works on a freemium model. Latest additions to its very effective tools include TakeOff and Eagle Eye. The former is the leading scheduling tool for Instagram and the latter is a powerful Twitter analytics tool. Both are available for free to, both, consumers and businesses.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)