Emojifi, an app that provides live emoji, sticker and graphics interchange format (GIF) suggestions based on the typed words across chat platforms, has raised angel funding from two Hyderabad-based unnamed angel investors, it said in a statement.
The capital will be used for marketing and enhancing the product. The company is also in the final stage of discussions to get an investment from an Indian celebrity, it said without naming the prospective investor.
The Emojifi app provides suggestions for stickers/emojis without the need to install a separate keyboard (for Andriod phones) and also allows the users to tag any word to any emoji/sticker to get customised suggestions in the language of their choice. The firm claims to have a patent pending for the technology.
Emojifi can be used on most popular chat apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Hike.
The startup has also partnered with actress Sunny Leone to launch her stickers on the platform, and would soon be launching stickers for a few brands as well.
Emojifi Pvt. Ltd, which runs the app, was founded in January 2017 by Varun MS, Manan Maheshwari and Mahesh Gogineni who are alumni of BITS-Pilani, Duke University and Stanford GSB, respectively. The trio previously co-founded on-demand beauty and wellness services provider Zapluk, which was acquired by online classified company Quikr.
One of the dominant players in this segment is New York-based GIF search firm Giphy Inc which raised $72 million in a fresh round of funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Institutional Venture Partners and China Media Capital in November last year.
Other companies in this sector are Gfycat, which raised a $10 million funding in September 2016, and Tenor Inc which has raised about $15 million so far.
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