Product review portal Reviews42, owned by New Delhi-based Solvy Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd, has secured funding from Blume Ventures and VentureEast Partners. The amount raised has not been disclosed. The deal was first reported by Medianama. A Blume Ventures representative would be joining the Reviews42 board.
Reviews42, a community-based product reviews site co-founded by Surjendu Kuila and Neeraj Jain in 2011, works by aggregating user reviews in as many as 6,000 products in a variety of categories including computers and accessories, mobile phones, clothes, baby products and kitchen utensils.
Kulia had worked at Rediff and Luna Ergonomics Pvt Ltd prior to starting his own venture while Jain was a partner at Metalogos and a senior business analyst at Spark Advisors.
Reviews42 allows users to browse and search through products by brand, categories, features and price. Apart from offering a detailed specification page along with user reviews, expert reviews, buying tips and overall ratings, it also features a comparison engine.
It uses third-party application programme interfaces (APIs) like webpurify and akismet to moderate reviews and curb spam as well as to discourage promotional reviews by brands about own products without disclosing their identity.
The portal also provides incentives to users to submit reviews by doling out free Flipkart coupons to the best review of the day.
“In the last two months we have received almost 10,000 reviews, but we have published (only ) around 3,000. That is the kind of quality we maintain. We have very highly moderated reviews and we ensure no duplicate content comes to our portal,†said Surjendu Kulia, co-founder and director, Reviews42.com.
Kulia told Techcircle that the capital raised will be used primarily for boosting its technology.
“We are very bullish on our price comparison feature. Through that we will do everything to push online shopping. We are also going to come up soon with a mobile app. We are also working on merging the online and offline price comparison. The users will get to see prices in the offline stores as well for a particular product,†Kulia said.
For the feature to merge online and offline prices, Reviews42 will partner with aggregators to source offline prices.
Other players in product review or price comparison business include mouthshut, naaptol, Amazon-owned Junglee, besides compareindia and pricesbolo.
The company is looking for Series A funding in the next 4-5 months. Its source of revenue is lead generation, apart from advertisements. It is also looking to expand its 16-member team.
“If e-Commerce has to grow, people will want genuine information about products online. Reviews42 provides unbiased product reviews and that is what we liked about it,†said Karthik Reddy of Blume Ventures.
Reddy said either himself or Sanjay Nath, another managing partner at Blume, will join the Reviews42 board.
On June 1, Blume Ventures invested in Pune-based Rolocule Games along with Mumbai Angels.
In May, online taxi booking site Taxiforsure.com had also raised an undisclosed amount from Blume Ventures and Helion Partners.
Blume has also invested in mobile, broadband and wireless technology firm United Mobile Apps, Bangalore-based startup Insieve and cloud telephony startup Exotel.