Messaging app Lookup raises $2.5 mn in Series-A round

Funding round also saw participation from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Narayana Murthy's Catamaran Ventures and Global Founders Capital among others

Bengaluru-based free and secure messaging app, Lookup, has raised $2.5 million (around Rs 16.25 crore) in a Series-A round of funding led by Vinod Khosla's personal fund Khosla Impact.

The funding round also saw the participation from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Narayana Murthy's Catamaran Ventures and Global Founders Capital, the European investment fund from Rocket Internet's Samwer brothers.

Other participants include Geneva based ACE & Company, Singapore-based M&S partners, New Look fashion chain founder Tom Singh, Lookout founder Kevin Mahaffey and LivSpace founder and former Google Local head Anuj Srivastava.

Lookup was founded in 2014 by Deepak Ravindran, a serial entrepreneur who has to credit floating two mobile messaging companies earlier - SMS based search engine Innoz and mobile knowledge messaging platform Quest.

Lookup had in January 2015 raised $382,000 in a seed round from Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, DeNA Japan, Beenos founder Teruhide Sato and MKS Switzerland SA. They also participated in the current round.

"Disruptive product startups are being built in India now. Khosla Impact funded Lookup to connect 40 million small businesses to consumers," Vinod Khosla said in a statement on Wednesday.

Within nine months of its launch, Lookup has registered one million users with over 800,000 users on Android. It has over 250,000 monthly active users, and over 70,000 merchants on the platform, with daily activity of 55-60,000 users.

It currently operates in three cities, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi. The funds will be utilised to expand Lookup's merchant base, in order to enhance convenience for its users and to branch out into newer geographies.

To date, Lookup has received over 15 million messages and handles about 100,000 daily messages ranging queries from food, medicines, groceries and electronics in a hyper-local area.

Currently available on both Android and iOS versions, Lookup has recently incorporated the booking feature for local saloons and spas and has tied up with supply chain solution firms like Delhivery for point-of-sales (POS) terminal integration. The app will soon make its presence in Dubai in partnership with Etisalat.

"Chat is eating the world. Lookup uses chat to disrupt local commerce in India, which is a $750-billion industry. India has the highest shop-density in the world with over 45 million local businesses," Lookup founder and chief executive officer Deepak Ravindran said.