Bangalore-based Noticeboard, a mobile-first communication platform for on-field staff, has raised $1.2 million (Rs 8 crore) in its first external round of funding led by Stellaris Venture Partners, a company statement said.
As part of the transaction, Alok Goyal, partner at Stellaris, will join the firm’s board.
The round also saw participation from Rajesh Yabaji, founder and chief executive of logistics firm BlackBuck, and Jayant Kadambi, co-founder of digital advertising firm YuMe, besides other undisclosed angels, the statement added.
930 Technologies Private Limited, which runs Noticeboard, will use the funds to strengthen its core technology and augment its product and design teams, the statement said.
Vishal Gahlaut, co-founder and CEO of Noticeboard, told VCCircle that the funds raised will give the company an operational runway of 12-15 months. Its focus for the next 6-9 months will be to ramp up the product, after which it will focus on marketing, he said.
“Despite nearly three decades of email, and thereafter, a variety of communication tools for desk workers, enterprise communication eludes front line staff. With over 300 million such workers in India and over 2 billion globally, we believe that this is a massive opportunity and one that should naturally come from India,” Goyal said in the statement.
Noticeboard was founded in 2016 by former Myntra executives Gahlaut, Vishesh Dahinwal and Sarath Chandran. The one-year-old startup offers a platform for enterprise communication to the frontline staff of an organisation, which helps in real-time flow of feedback, updates, and other items of notice. Managers can onboard their team members onto the app through their email IDs or mobile phone numbers.
Information and content sharing can be done by organising the communication topic through subject boards. The platform, which works for team sizes of 50-50,000, can also be used offline. The company claims that it is a first-of-its-kind product that addresses the communication lacunae between the desk and field staff.
“The falling costs of smartphones and data make it possible today to reach out to the last person in the organisation. For teams to deliver superior customer experience, real-time, reliable information sharing is a must,” Dahinwal said.
An IIM-Ahmedabad alumni, Gahlaut was formerly vice president at Myntra, heading the womenswear and kidswear business while Dahinwal, who is also Noticeboard’s technology head, previously led the logistics division at Myntra. Chandran, the third co-founder and product head of the venture, is an ISB graduate. Prior to this venture, he was part of the product management vertical at Walmart Labs India. Earlier, he led back-end product initiatives at Myntra.
