SmsGupShup Raises 12M $ in Funding From Globespan Capital Partners
Smsgupshup the sms based social network had just a few months ago stated that it was only 6 months away from breaking even. Also recently they launched social cause driven groups to further their reach and marketing efforts. All in all Smsgupshup has the numbers to boast of. They claim 26 million users in over 2 million sms communities which is no small number by any standard. Also as we have pointed out earlier there are huge costs associated in supporting this kind of mass messaging which is why they needed their earlier 11 million dollar funding from Helion in the first place.
Now it seems that Smsgupshup has broadened its horizons beyond India and is looking towards a global strategy. To power the same it has raised a D series funding of 12 million $ led by Globespan Capital Partners and supported by earlier investors Charles River Ventures and Helion Ventures.
As we have stated earlier at WATBlog India is the fastest growing market as far as mobile penetration is concerned. And currently Smsgupshup accounts for 5% of all text messages sent in India. With The mobile market pegged to reach 771 million in India and 4 billion globally as per Gartner the future certainly looks bright for the company.
This latest round brings the total funding of Smsgupshup to $37million which is quite something if you ask me! They are also planning to increase their headcount from the current 100 to 130. The real challenge for Smsgupshup is to win advertiser confiddence in the sms medium without pissing off their current users with spammy and intrusive messaging. In the longterm its this tight rope that Smsgupshup would need to walk.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS Feed OR Email Alerts!
Any idea on what their valuation was for this round? With $37M raised are they valued north of $100M assuming that this last round was an up round? From an old techcrunch article it seemed like their revenue run rate was about $ 2M/year – so a P/S ratio of 50?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/04/smsgupshup-indias-twitter-grows-to-20-million-users-150000month-revenue/