Photo-sharing app Vebbler raises pre-Series A funds

Photo-sharing app Vebbler has raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A round of funding from a group of new and existing investors, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

The new participating investors include Ambiga Subramanian, former chief executive of big data firm Mu Sigma; Dino Morea, film actor; Nikhil Chinapa, television host and disc jockey; Anurakt Jain, vice president at ad-tech firm InMobi; Sanjay Ramakrishnan, former senior director of product at e-commerce firm Flipkart; and Pranay Jivrajka, founding partner at cab-hailing firm Ola.

Existing investors who put money in the round were Anupam Mittal, founder and chief executive officer of People Group; Sharad Sharma, co-founder of iSpirt (Indian Software Product Industry Round Table); Venkat Raju, chief executive of Kyron Accelerator; and Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer of information technology firm Infosys, the statement added.

The funds were raised via deals platform LetsVenture.

Vebbler’s founder and chief executive Sahil Bhagat told TechCircle in an email that the startup will use the capital mainly to hire key senior-level executives and to scale the business through marketing and advertising.

"Vebbler provides a brilliant camera experience for millennials and is focusing on strong content through topic-based channels and stories,” said Subramanian in the statement.

Vebbler presently consists of a 15-member team across technology, marketing and other non-tech roles.

Run by Vebbler Technologies Pvt. Ltd, the Mumbai-based startup was launched in 2013 as a social network for conversations and later tweaked its offering to a photo sharing and collaboration app.

The latest iteration of the app allows users to share photos in groups called clubs, which can only be accessed by other club members.

Prior to Vebbler, Bhagat, an alumnus of the London School of Economics, set up two startups—a crowdfunding platform called Frogster and a college-based animation and film startup called Doodle Works.

In 2016, Vebbler raised $500,000 from a syndicate of 16 investors across the globe, including India, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US.

In 2017, the startup was selected for social media giant Facebook’s FbStart programme.