Social Cops raises fund from investors

Bangalore: Social Cops, a smartphone application for reporting civic problems, recently closed a $3,20,000 round of funding, led by Silicon Valley-based fund 500 Startups and angel investors Rajan Anandan and Manoj Menon.

The Social Cops app allows users to report simple problems in their locality by uploading photographs and sharing their location.

Varun Banka, Prukalpa Sankar and Harjoben Singh, founded this Delhi-based start-up in 2012. The company has collaborated with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and public administrators to make the app an open platform that can gather big data from various localities and bring accountability into the system.

“The census in many developing countries occurs only once in 10 years and often the data is outdated before it can be used. We want to power even the census on a real-time basis by leveraging our non-profit partners who reach the remotest parts of the world,” said Banka.

Over the last eight months, Social Cops has taken up various issues in India such as making citizens rate cleanliness on streets and creating public worker reward systems.

“I am thrilled with the pioneering work that Social Cops is doing. We are limited only by our imagination in terms of how technology can address the challenges facing humanity. Social Cops is well poised to play an important role in helping shape a better future and humbled to be part of it,” said Manoj Menon, managing director (Southeast Asia), Frost and Sullivan, who has invested in the company.