Venture capital firm, Blume Ventures, has released a quarterly report in which it discloses funding updates, via an Instamojo listing. Although, the report does not contain details about performance of the portfolio companies and investment details (they’re issued separately and not made public), it does disclose previously undisclosed investments:
– Framebench – It is essentially a collaboration tool facilitating communication between Designers and Clients, with support for storage, demonstration, and interaction. The service is invite based and in early stages of development. Founded by Rohit Agarwal & Vineet Markan, Co-investors: Individual Angels, Maneesh Bhandari, Ladsariya group.
– Glamrs – Yet to be launched. It appears that the site will offer content related to beauty, including Reviews, Expert Tips, Ratings, How-To videos, Demos and Features created by its experts, and an online store offering a curated range of beauty products. It will also offer a monthly box of beauty products to discover and try. Co-investors include Anil Chopra, Sanjay Kamlani, among other angels.
– IDfy – Allows users to create a virtual identity by scanning and uploading their identity documents and getting their credentials verified. It also allows organizations to conduct online background checks of employees. It offers a freemium model with different pricing plans and plans for standalone document verification. The service was founded by Ashok Hariharan and Hatim Baheranwala. It has other individual angels as co-investors.
– 23spaces – It is an app development company. The company is currently developing two different apps – Focal which aims to organize and enable the discovery of curated information based on the context and Polo which aims to enable users to organize and discover curated travel experiences. Focal is currently in the Alpha stage and Polo is in ideation stage. The company was founded by Nitin Hayaran, Rohit Muppidi and Vipul Shaily.
Other (previously disclosed) investments made by the Fund:
– Reviews42 – Community based product reviews platform. Founded by Neeraj Jain & Surjendu Kuila, with Ventureast as co-investor. We had reported the funding in June.
– Exotel – Provides a virtual business telephony system. Founded by Shivakumar Ganesan, Ishwar Sridharan, Siddharth Ramesh and Vijay Sharma. Had raised Rs 2.5 crores in its Series A funding from Blume and Mumbai Angels in return for 25% stake. Other co-investor – BITS Angel.
– Sporting Mindz: It offers analytical solutions and services to sports organizations to improve the performance of sportsmen. Among the products currently offered include a sports technique analysis software SKRUTiN, an umpire training and assessment software 3rd Eye and match analysis software for Cricket, Tennis, Hockey and Football. Founded by Sanjay Rao and Sandeep Kannambadi. Co-investors include Anil Kumble Sports.
– Aurality: It offers an iOS app which acts as a personal web radio that allows users to listen to their favorite blogs, news, articles or any website. Founded by Janhavi Parikh & Bhavin Badheka. It had raised $300,000 seed funding from Google India MD Rajan Anandan, Vikas Taneja, Indian Angel Network’s Sunil Kalra and Blume Ventures. Other Co-investors: Veddis, Hemant Kanakia, Anmol Nayyar, Ladsariya group, and Ravi Trivedi.
– Cherish Maternity: An e-commerce company which provides pregnancy and maternity products like apparel, books, and gifts. Founded by Arathi Kuppu. Co-investors include Rehan yar khan, and Rajan Anandan.
– Hashcube: It develops puzzle games for social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, Orkut and Hi5 and mobile platforms like Apple’s iOS. Among the titles developed by the company include Facebook games like Sudoku, SudokoQuest, Loop the Loop, DotGame and web games like Sudoku Solver, Photographic Memory Game, and Color Matching Game. Founded by Deepan Chakravarthy & Ramprasad Rajendran. We had reported the funding in July. Other Co-investors: Indian Angel Network.
– Insieve: It is an information sharing network which learns about the interests of user’s friends network based on the content shared by the user, and provides article recommendations to share with a specific friend based on their interests. Among the company’s products include a content discovery engine Dhiti, a meta-search discovery engine Nuggetize and a twitter analysis service Intweetion. Founded by Bharath Kumar Mohan & Venkatesh K Sharma. It had raised an angel round of funding from Ojas Ventures and Blume Ventures in April 2012.
– TaxiForSure: An online taxi booking service which aggregates car rentals and taxis by working with various taxi operators. The service is currently available in Bangalore with plans to launch in Delhi and Mumbai in the near future. Founded by Aprameya Radhakrishna & Raghunandan G. We had reported this funding in May 2012. Co-investors: Accel Partners, Helion Venture Partners and Individual Angels.
– United Mobile Apps: A mobile app development company which develops apps for various mobile platforms. Some of its products include USync Contacts Backup, UConnect Connection Manager, UManage Device manager, Friend Locator, Delete Contacts on Android and the Auto Rikshaw complaint app. Founded by Sriram V Iyer & Arun Samudrala. Co-Investors: Mumbai Angels, India Value Partners, PB Consulting (Austria). We had covered the company in February 2011.
– Emo2: A surface computing company which develops both hardware and software for touch screens. The company plans to launch a 42-inch multi-touch multi-user touch screen, emo2 world later this year (Video Demo). Founded by Mir Abid Hussain & Mohammed Azharudin. Co-investors include Rajan Anandan, Zafar Baig, and other angels.
– Rolocule Games: A game development studio which specializes in developing console-like games for tablets and smartphones. Some of its games include iPhone games like Flick Tennis, Touch Squash, Super Badminton 2010, and iPad games like Flick Tennis: College Wars HD andSuper Badminton 2010 HD. Founded by Rohit Gupta & Anuj Tandon. The company had raised funding from Mumbai Angels, Blume Ventures and other angel investors in June 2012.
By Anupam Saxena and Vikas SN
