Furthering its vision of nurturing high-value global start-ups from within India, Venture Catalysts, India’s first seed investment &innovation platform, has recently enabled a seed investment into AppSay, a new-age business communications platform. Led by VCats angels Shreyans Shah and Mayank Shah, the $150,000 investment will allow AppSay to scale up its operations and develop its tech framework to further refine its product.
A long-term customer engagement and ‘qualified’ leads platform, AppSay has been built to provide businesses with a viable customer engagement channel that does away with the hassles and drawbacks associated with traditional messaging. The core team at AppSay comprises its Founder & CEO Vaibhav Shewale, an IIM–C alumnus with 20+ years of experience in global products and services, and Jeetendra Ghare, COO and Angel Investor with 17 years of global telecom and consulting expertise.
Speaking on the investment, Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder, Venture Catalysts, said, “At Venture Catalysts, we have always been on the lookout for high-impact start-ups which leverage technology to disrupt their market segments. The investment into AppSay is therefore a measure of our faith in the operational model of the start-up as well as the vision and business acumen of the team behind it. Given how fragmented business communications and lead generation around the world is at present, we are confident that AppSay will be able to transform the sector through its tech-driven, user-centric approach.”
Vaibhav Shewale, Founder& CEO, AppSay, said, “We are delighted to be chosen for an investment by VCats, which is fast establishing itself as one of the most forward-looking seed investment platforms in the country. The funds will not only allow us to tap into newer markets to scale up our operations and sales, but will also help in significantly enhancing and refining our offerings as we get ready for the global launch of our product.”
The AppSay platform is built to protect customer information of businesses. It provides the end-user with a unique, non-intrusive way of reaching out to businesses like banks, schools, utilities, NGOs, hospitals, insurers and government departments for information, service and support. VCats’ move to enable seed investment into the start-up also underlines its commitment to nurture entrepreneurship by building a holistic, end-to- end start-up investment and support ecosystem across the country, including tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Venture Catalysts recently expanded its operations into Surat to an extremely positive response and will be looking to establish its physical presence in five cities in 2016 with an aim to expand to five more cities in the next two years.
Anuj Golecha, Co-founder, Venture Catalysts, added, “In a world that is fast going digital, there is a growing need to protect the sanctity of end-users’ information and respect their privacy and choice. However, businesses also require customer information and engagement in order to grow and develop. With its differentiated approach, AppSay has emerged as a viable customer engagement tool for businesses which also provides users with a non-intrusive way of reaching out to service providers. We believe the idea is disruptive enough to be a global success, and will be on the lookout for other such ideas which solve global problems through localised solutions.”
Speaking about what made him invest in AppSay, Shreyans Shah, said, "AppSay is a highly cost-effective global product that offers brilliant solutions to businesses around the world to tackle the growing hassles associated with bulk SMS and emails. Its pull-based approach has all the necessary features that can help in protecting customer information. Supported by a strong team and veteran founders with prior experience in the telecom sector, I see great potential for AppSay in the BFSI sector, and am confident that it will transform business communications across the globe through its disruptive technology.”
Having enabled over nine investments worth more than $3 million in promising start-ups such as vPhrase Analytics, Vahanalytics, Siftr and ConfirmTKT since the launch of its operations, VCats has already established its credentials as the fastest growing early-stage investment platform in the country. VCats has several strategic partnerships with leading industry players such as Cox and Kings, HDFC, Plug and Play, Zaffiro Venturesetc, giving its investee start-ups access to some of the biggest corporate companies in India and increasing their chances of success by enhancing business opportunities.
