Lookup names Narayan Babu first tech chief

Lookup, a chat-based app that connects local merchants with customers, has appointed Narayan Babu as its first chief technology officer.

Babu was the director of engineering at California-based Quixey Inc before joining Lookup, the Bangalore-based startup said in a press release.

Quixey is a mobile app search engine service that is backed by SoftBank and Alibaba.

Earlier, Babu co-founded Dexetra Software Solutions Pvt Ltd, a Sequoia- and Qualcomm-backed startup that developed a SIRI-like voice-based personal assistance app for Android. In November 2014, Quixey acqui-hired Dexetra.

"I see chat as one of the biggest drivers of business growth," Babu said.

Lookup, run by Hatchery Software Pvt Ltd, was launched in October 2014. It was developed by Deepak Ravindran, co-founder and former CEO of SMS-based search engine services startup Innoz Technologies.

The app has 1.2 million users and has about 85,000 verified business vendors on its platform, according to the company's statement.

In October last year, Lookup raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla's personal fund, Khosla Impact. Lookup is also backed by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.