Altruist acquires Bubbly

Singapore-based social voice messaging firm Bubbly (formerly known as Bubble Motion) has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by India-based mobile VAS company Altruist Group, which provides telecom services in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The terms of the deal were undisclosed. Bubbly, which was known as Bubble Motion before rebranding last year, raised a total of $39 million, and investors, including Sequoia Capital, Comcast Ventures, Palomar Ventures, JAFCO Asia, NGP, Infocomm Investments, and SingTel Innov8, will be minority shareholders in the combined company.

Bubbly said it has 40 million users in Asia and North Africa on its voice-based social media platform, as well as 140 million users on BubbleTalk, a voice SMS service.

In a statement, Altruist co-founder Dheeraj Aggarwal said, "We are very excited about the addition of Bubbly… It's a perfect complement to our European and African voice platform business which caters to more than 80 million active voice messaging users, which would immediately benefit from the addition of a proven, yet futuristic service."

TinyOwl raises $3 million
TinyOwl Technology Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based start-up that offers location-based mobile application (app) for ordering food, has secured $3 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, reports VCCircle. The app can detect the users' locations and show restaurants in their vicinity. But it is currently available only in Mumbai's suburbs, from Andheri-Malad to Mulund-Vikhroli. It offers both card and cash-on-delivery payment options to customers.

The app can also suggest exclusive orders and deals to customers, and saves their address and card details securely, so that they can save time while placing orders again.

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