Nearify raises funds from three investors

Bangalore: Novelroots Internet Pvt. Ltd, maker of the Nearify mobile app that collates information on local events, on Monday said it has raised between $0.5 million and $1 million from Seedfund Advisors, India Quotient and Bedrock Ventures.

“We will use these funds to build technology and strengthen our mobile application. We are also looking to incorporate new features such as ticketing facilities for paid events and a messaging platform that will allow users to discuss events with their friends,” said Vivek Srivastava, co-founder of Nearify over phone.

Nearify uses technology to identify events from the Internet such as concerts, music festivals, parties, workshops, shows and meet-ups.

Novelroots was started in December 2012, and the app Nearify was launched in June 2013 by Mayank Kumar, Saurav Singh and Srivastava. It hosts around 10 million events from 52 cities around the world. “We get 80% of the traffic from outside India,” said Srivastava, adding the company plans to open an office in the US in the next one year.

Novelroots is also working on creating an event promotion platform for organizers where they can “preferentially” list their events on Nearify for a fee.

“The app is global-focused and the model is quite scalable. The Nearify team has a strong technology background that sets them apart from the rest,” said Shailesh Vikram Singh, executive director at Seedfund.