#webengage, the Mumbai based startup that started with a web annotation idea and later pivoted into a customer engagement tool/feedback service has raised its first round of funding from IAN.
The funding was actually closed 3-4 months back, but has been announced officially today. The investors in WebEngage include active angel investors Rajan Anandan, Sunil Kalra, Sadeesh Raghavan, Ashim Mehra, Nitin Singhal, Pradeep Gupta and Harish Mehta.
Launched in May, 2011, WebEngage (rebranded from WebKlipper) has two core products focused on customer engagement – feedback and contextual surveys. While existing engagement tools like UserVoice and GetSatisfaction gather feedback, WebEngage goes deeper allowing publishers to create surveys that can be targeted at visitors on their website based on behaviour, geography and profile to seamlessly gather proactive feedback to improve their product offering and drive conversions.
When Pluggd.in last reviewed Webengage, here is what we mentioned:
An important feature present in WebKlipper to enable rule based notifications that will help publishers to create site alerts based on a certain rules:
- Target a question at visitors coming from certain geography(ies):
- You can ask a very specific question to a visitor from search engines (all major ones supported). E.g. This survey will only be visible to visitors who come via Google search.
- Target a question at visitors for a particular page(s) on your website: You can create a different survey for your product page and a separate one for your pricing page.
- Target a question at visitors spending x amount of time on your site.
The product does solves a serious pain and has grabbed customers like Cleartrip, JustEat, one97 etc. The key for WebEngage is to grow beyond the Indian market and ensure SAAS based pricing model (recurring payments) for overseas customers.
———-Press Release———-
WebEngage.com raises first round of funding from Indian Angel Network
Mumbai, October 17, 2011: Mumbai-based tech start-up, offering customer engagement tools for web businesses, WebEngage (http://webengage.com), has raised its first round of funding from Indian Angel Network. The funds will be utilized in expanding product offering, creating technology differentiators, marketing and human capital.
Launched in May, 2011, WebEngage has two core products focused on customer engagement – feedback and contextual surveys. While existing engagement tools like UserVoice and GetSatisfaction gather feedback, WebEngage goes deeper allowing publishers to create surveys that can be targeted at visitors on their website based on behaviour, geography and profile to seamlessly gather proactive feedback to improve their product offering and drive conversions.
WebEngage was founded by ex-engineering team members at burrp.com – the local lifestyle portal that was acquired by Infomedia18 in 2009. Speaking on the first round of funding from IAN, Avlesh Singh, co-founder & CEO, WebEngage said, “From concept to execution, we knew that WebEngage will usher in a new era in customer engagement on the web. We have already come out of private beta and closed deals with 400 web businesses including Cleartrip, Future Group, One97 and Just-Eat Global. This shows the faith that consumer centric companies have in WebEngage product and how we can create positive impact on their online businesses.”
” It is a privilege to have industry stalwarts as our investors and we are confident that the investment will help us accelerate growth and expand in markets outside India. We have added IAN member and lead investor Rajan Anandan to the company’s board”, Avlesh added.
The first round of funding has been raised from the Indian Angel Network, India’s largest organized angel network. The investors in WebEngage include active angel investors Rajan Anandan, Sunil Kalra, Sadeesh Raghavan, Ashim Mehra, Nitin Singhal, Pradeep Gupta and Harish Mehta.
Rajan Anandan, an active investor in early stage technology companies, who led the investment from the network said, “The worldwide web has now crossed two billion users and there are millions of web based businesses across the world. Deeply engaging with users is one of the most important priorities for such businesses and WebEngage provides simple, yet powerful SaaS based solutions to help businesses achieve customer satisfaction, marketing and sales objectives. We are confident that WebEngage will set new standards in customer engagement, and real time customer feedback.”
Indian Angel Network, early investors in WebEngage, is the first and largest pan-India Angel network comprising several of India’s successful entrepreneurs and CEOs who share a passion for early stage businesses. The Network has over 170 members and has made more than 25 investments across multiple sectors like IT, Mobile and Education and has made several successful exits.
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