Nilekani invests in mobile product firm Mubble

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani has made an undisclosed investment in Mubble, making it his first investment in a mobile technology product company.

Mubble is an app that smartphone users track to control their telecom spends and, more importantly, their mobile data usage.

Mubble does this via an advanced self-learning, offline-capable, on-device text analytics engine, which is a first of its kind anywhere in the world. By giving users one-click access to their telecom spend & mobile data usage information across SIM cards, Mubble empowers users to take smarter decisions when it comes to using their smartphones, the firm said in a statement.

"Mubble brings unprecedented transparency and empowerment to the smartphone user, by democratizing technology and solving key problems of smartphone adopters across India," Nilekani said in a statement.

"We are thrilled to have Mr. Nilekani, one of the pioneers of the IT revolution in India, with us as our mentor & strategy coach. His investment is a very powerful validation of our product and reflects Mubble's commitment to enabling smartphone adopters make a fear-free entry into the digital world", said Ashwin Ramaswamy, co-founder & CEO of Mubble. The funding, for an undisclosed sum, will be used to scale up the technology team at Mubble.

Since going live, Mubble has rapidly gained popularity with its users. The app has clocked over half a million downloads, in less than six months. The app is designed to work offline, thereby conserving precious mobile data balance of its users. Mubble is available in multiple Indian languages, with nearly half of its users using Mubble in their mother tongue instead of English. Ramaswamy said "Mubble is not only Made In India, it is truly Made-For-India."

Mubble was founded in 2013 by Ashwin Ramaswamy (IIT Madras, IIM Bangalore), Pranav Jha (IIT Bombay) and Raghvendra Varma (IIT BHU).