Online photography service Flatpebble has raised an undisclosed amount of investment from a series of angel investors. The company has told NextBigWhat that the investment was under Rs 1 crore, with participation from investors like Raghu Bathina and Lax Gopisetty of Hyderabad Angels, Apere CEO Ram Jayam and Sitaram Banda. The company plans to use the investment raised to improve its product, acquire new customers and for hiring. Founded in May 2013, Hyderabad-based Flatpebble allows users to search and hire photography related professionals like photographers, cinematographers, stylists and models specializing in specific areas like wedding, sports, wildlife, celebrity, food, babies and others, although the focus is on wedding photographers. It also allows users to post job requests and receive quotes from photographers. Besides this, Flatpebble also allows users to hire camera equipment, rent studios and order photobooks among others. The company claims to have processed around 185 jobs worth Rs 0.9 crore for photographers across 75 Indian cities in the past four months and claims to have more than 800 portfolios from photographers across 175 cities in India. *** BSE-listed software product and technology services company Persistant Systems has launched an early stage fund called Persistant Venture Fund which will focus on social, mobile, analytics and cloud computing (SMAC) technologies and provide seed capital for early stage companies in these segments. California-based video calling iPad app ustyme has received the first investment from this fund, although the investment amount has not been disclosed. Founded in 2012, ustyme aims to offer users shared experiences around content like books and games. The app…
