{"id":3785,"date":"2016-05-27T13:00:43","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T07:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ishwark6.sg-host.com\/?p=3785"},"modified":"2016-05-31T10:33:20","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T05:03:20","slug":"little-black-book-secures-funds-idg-ventures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/?p=3785","title":{"rendered":"Little Black Book Secures Funds from IDG Ventures"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"modern-quote full\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Who doesn\u2019t like to invest in lifestyle platforms?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Founded in the year 2012 by Suchita Salwan and Dhruv Mathur, Little Black Book (LBB) is a Delhi-based media-tech startup for discovering local cultural and lifestyle recommendation guide that includes restaurants, shopping, adventure, travel and events in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida.<\/p>\n<p>LBB raises $1.2 million of funding from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ishwark6.sg-host.com\/idg-ventures-india-plans-fund-25-tech-startups\/\">IDG Ventures<\/a> and Indian Angel Network. \u00a0Last year, LBB had secured a seed funding of $150,000 from many investors including Rajan Anandan of Google India and Sachin Bhatia of MakeMyTrip. It will utilize the recent funds in technology expansion and talent acquisition accompanied with extending its base to five more cities in India. Currently, LBB\u2019s website and app is available in Delhi and Bangalore. The app is available in both, iOS and Android version.<\/p>\n<p>Little Black Book innovatively provides unique neighboring discoveries by using content as a medium to keep their audience glued on the platform. The startup has partnered with renowned brands like Coca Cola, Airbnb, HTC, Samsung and Nestle.<\/p>\n<p>The local discovery market seems to be booming since such apps like Shouut, Living Local, GoYaNo and OUWT are recently receiving a lot of funding. Within just about 8 months, this unique platform witnessed over 800% growth in monthly active users and around 600% growth in revenue. Little Black Book claims to currently have 600,000 monthly users via their website and have further plans to reach out to over 1million users every month.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Takeaways:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>LBB raises $1.2 million of funding from IDG Ventures and Indian Angel Network. <\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>It will utilize the recent funds in technology expansion and talent acquisition accompanied with extending its base to five more cities in India.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Little Black Book innovatively provides unique\u00a0neighbouring\u00a0discoveries by using content as a medium to\u00a0keep their audience glued on the platform.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Press Release:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>LBB is the first investment from IDGVI\u2019s Digital Consumer Innovators Program<br \/>\nLittle Black Book, a media-tech enterprise based out of New Delhi, has raised $1.2<br \/>\nmillion from IDG Ventures India and Indian Angel Network. Reaching out to over 1<br \/>\nmillion users every month, Little Black Book is currently available in Delhi and<br \/>\nBangalore as a website and app, and gives a local audience the best things to do in<br \/>\ntheir city across interests and locations.<br \/>\nLittle Black Book (LBB) curates recommendations across categories, providing<br \/>\nunique local discoveries in innovative formats. An evolution from existing listingbased<br \/>\nmodels, LBB uses content as a medium to drive an engaged audience to<br \/>\nlocal enterprises, places and experiences. They partner with local small to medium<br \/>\nscale brands as well as large global brands looking to engage with a local audience<br \/>\nincluding Coca Cola, Airbnb, HTC, Samsung, Nestle.<br \/>\nFounded by Suchita Salwan, an Economics graduate from Hindu College who has<br \/>\nworked with Wizcraft and the BBC, and co-founded by Dhruv Mathur, a Carnegie<br \/>\nMellon graduate who has worked with Deloitte and on his own startup GetFBPay.in,<br \/>\nLittle Black Book has seen tremendous organic growth stemming from a strong<br \/>\nproduct market fit. \u201cWe have proven that urban consumers want to move beyond<br \/>\ntraditional Yelp-esque listing and aggregator platforms; they seek more than just<br \/>\nfood and event discoveries. As a media-tech business, our north star has been<br \/>\ndriving not just monthly active users, but delivering a product that draws a highly<br \/>\nengaged and sticky audience\u201d says Suchita.<br \/>\nKaran Mohla, Executive Director and Head of Consumer Tech &amp; Media at IDG<br \/>\nVentures \u201cLBB represents the type of new-age disruptive digital media company<br \/>\nthat we as venture investors are excited to partner with. LBB has created an<br \/>\nimmersive and engaged platform for consumers and brands across Delhi and<br \/>\nBangalore today and expanding that to five more cities in the near future. Suchita<br \/>\nand Dhruv are the foundational cornerstones of this exciting company and have<br \/>\ndemonstrated great focus and passion to build out a strong technology platform.\u201d<br \/>\nLittle Black Book raised a seed round in May 2015, with prolific angels including<br \/>\nRajan Anandan (MD Google Asia), Sachin Bhatia (co-founder MakeMyTrip,<br \/>\nTrulyMadly) and Niraj Singh (co-founder Outbox Ventures, Spinny) participating. In just about 8 months since, LBB has seen over 800% growth in monthly active users<br \/>\nand over 600% growth in revenue.<br \/>\nThe company\u2019s vision is to connect urban consumers to the best things to do, for<br \/>\nthem, in their city. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to build out a platform that intelligently<br \/>\nrecommends experiences that are suited to a unique users tastes and preferences.<br \/>\nPersonalization and user retention is our key focus with respect to product\u201d adds<br \/>\nDhruv.<br \/>\nRishabh Mehta, one of the lead investor in this round and IAN nominated Board<br \/>\nDirector has this to say- \u201cWhat is interesting about LBB is that their unit economics is<br \/>\njust brilliant. With a small team and minimal burn they have been able to build a<br \/>\npretty impressive brand image for themselves. Considering the fact that they have<br \/>\nover 1 million users engaged across just 2 cities, now the potential is huge for<br \/>\nscaling up not only in India but globally.\u201d<br \/>\nFind Little Black Book at LBB.IN. App available on Android and iOS.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who doesn\u2019t like to invest in lifestyle platforms? Founded in the year 2012 by Suchita Salwan and Dhruv Mathur, Little Black Book (LBB) is a Delhi-based media-tech startup for discovering local cultural and lifestyle recommendation guide that includes restaurants, shopping, adventure, travel and events in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. LBB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":3802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,21],"tags":[929,928,70,875],"class_list":["post-3785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-start-up","tag-idg-ventures","tag-little-black-book","tag-startup","tag-startup-buzz"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/lbb.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3785"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3931,"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions\/3931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}