SMS GupShup was created with the vision to create group messaging for all. The SMS GupShup platform enables the creation of large Mobile Communities and Reply-All Chat, a revolutionary product that allows people to use SMS for communication in smaller groups. SMS GupShup extends the capabilities of p2p sms technology to social messaging including 1-to-many, many-to-many and many-to-1 communication, thereby enabling social interactions on sms, the only medium that reaches 4 billion users worldwide. Mobile communities allow people to create large groups and broadcast messages to them using just SMS while brands and enterprises use the service to connect to their customers. Launched in April 2007, it is used by 40 million users in 4 million communities that share content on topics such as finance, entertainment, lifestyle, health, sports and technology. The unique Reply-All Chat service enables the CC like functionality of e-mail on SMS and allows multiple people to chat simultaneously in smaller groups. Carriers are using this service today to increase ARPU and offer their customers a truly mobile solution for social networking. Founded by seasoned Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and incubated at the IIT Bombay Business Incubator, the company is funded by Charles River Ventures, Helion Ventures and Globespan Capital. Brands and enterprises use the SMS GupShup platform for their mobile marketing needs in different ways: Advertising: While the platform is free for users to build communities around topics of interest, GupShup reserves the right to insert text ads in the messages. Advertisers can submit their ads and target them by demographic and behavioral attributes. This product delivers valuable content to consumers, permission-based contextual marketing to advertisers. Customer Engagement: For brand marketers who want to engage their existing and prospective customers through building mobile communities, the GupShup platform enables interaction with their customers, thereby enhancing loyalty, catalyzing referrals and increasing revenues, besides offering substantial reach (unlike the web) and interactivity (unlike print, TV or outdoor). Mobile CRM: SMS GupShup not only helps businesses acquire, retain and grow customer bases but also empowers them to innovate, promote and sell their products. The GupShup platform provides a comprehensive set of products and services to suit every business need. It includes a community platform, Lead Management system, Loyalty management system, Contest Management tools, Media tools etc. Carriers use the reply-all capability of SMS GupShup to increase ARPU and loyalty of their subscriber base. SMS GupShup also sells premium content and services to consumers. SMS Reply-All: This product enables many-to-many communication between friends, family and co-workers. A natural extension of p2p messaging and just as easy to use, this product is offered to consumers in partnership with carriers. Users get the Confidential and Proprietary ® SMS GupShup / Webaroo Inc. 2009-10 benefit of quick and easy multi-party communication, while carriers benefit from increased messaging volume and ARPU. GupShup is engaged in conversations with dozens of carriers around the world, with product launches starting in Q2 2010. SMS App Platform: This product enables many-to-one, multi-user interactions among users. The app platform is an open developer platform that enables rapid creation and deployment of SMS based services such contests, polls, surveys, multi-user games, study tools, productivity, collaboration tools etc. By deploying the App Platform, carriers can greatly expand the pool of "Content Partners" to include anyone, anywhere as well as reduce the cost of deployment. It allows for easy development and access to relevant user generated apps, groups and communities, making it a social destination of choice among the target audiences. All content shows up on SMS as well as WAP & Web. For more information, please visit www.smsgupshup.com
Beerud is a co-founder of Webaroo. Prior to Webaroo, Beerud founded Elance, the pioneer of the world's largest online services marketplace. He played various leadership roles at different stages of the company's growth, including developing product and business strategies, product management, marketing & business development, and remains on the board of directors. Prior to founding Elance, Beerud worked in the financial services industry; modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and before that at Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning software agents for personalized news filtering.
Rakesh is a co-founder of Webaroo. He has been a founder of three technology start up companies in the past 10 years and also an early stage investor in several other companies. He was a founder and CEO of Junglee, whose virtual database technology led to the creation of comparison shopping on the Internet. Junglee was acquired by Amazon.com in 1998. He founded Armedia, which was one of the first companies with chip designs for the video component of the DVD standard. Armedia was acquired by Broadcom in 1999. He also founded PurpleYogi, now Stratify which provides enterprise solutions to the management of unstructured data. Rakesh is a board member of Geodesic, a BSE listed company whose Mundu Instant Messenger is used by millions of people.
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| Copyright Helion Venture Partners 2006 |
