Info Edge has announced an investment in Nogle Technologies (approved investment of up to Rs. 10 million).
Started by ex-Info Edge employees (Siddharth Goyal earlier started KitneBaje), Nogle is an information sharing portal which will launch its product Blinkk.me in the coming days (the product details aren’t yet announced).
While we don’t want to talk about the product yet (will profile it once its ready), I really wonder if webapp startups really need to look at raising funds before the product launch – especially from large corporates like InfoEdge who won’t really do smaller investments (of 10L-20L range).
Funding at a very early stage brings an unnecessary pressure and importantly, inhibits the experimentation part to nth degree (when will you pivot?) Can you really say ‘scrap this/move on to Plan B’?.
And if you are a webapp raising funds to have big names on your board, it’s a different ball game (certainly needed when you need contacts in an industry).
What’s your take on raising funds at a very early stage? Does that give you enough cushion? Importantly, do you need that cushion?
Please Note: I haven’t reached out to Nogle team yet and will have them share the product details as and when its ready. The discussion primarily is around raising funds before launching the webapp. Webapp business has become extraordinarily cheap with cloud infrastructure and the wide availability of open source tools, so raise fund ONLY when you are certain about the business (and what you are getting into).
