GrabOn, an online coupons and deals venture launched by Hyderabad-headquartered e-commerce products company Landmark IT Solutions (LMIT), has secured $250,000 in funding from an unnamed high net-worth individual (HNI) in the US, a top executive of LMIT told VCCircle.
GrabOn will use the capital to expand its operations to North America, especially in the US, early next year, said Ashok Reddy, co-founder of LMIT.
GrabOn was started in September 2013 by a group of five—Bhanu Raju, Spandan Jaggumantri, Sitaram Kumar Bodempudi, HariBabu Yeliti and Nagendar Chamalla—along with Reddy.
The portal aggregates online coupons and deals across electronics, travel, fashion and food & dining from online retailers such as Snapdeal, Flipkart, Amazon, Foodpana, Jabong, redBus, and updates them on their website. GrabOn claims that there are over 3,000 coupons from more than 1,000 merchants. It has 12 lakh registered users and 20 lakh monthly unique visitors. It earns commissions from the e-commerce companies based on transactions.
In addition, the portal offers a monthly expense savings calculator, which has features like interactive charts and talking mascot to give saving suggestions to users.
The startup has operations in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad.
“We want to hit the 10 million unique visitors per month mark by February next year, and open an office in the US, where we are currently operating remotely from India,†says Reddy.
The venture was incubated at LMIT and had earlier received Rs 20 lakh (over $30,000) from the firm.
Founded in 2008, LMIT provides online business, content management, application development and marketing solutions. The company has over 75 employees and its clients are spread across the US, Europe and the Middle East.
Last year, LMIT launched an employee entrepreneurship programme where it acts as an in-house incubator and encourages its employees to explore their ideas. The company also provides Rs 20 lakh to each idea.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
