ShepHertz raises an Angel round from Mumbai Angels and Kae Capital - the entrepreneurs story
Delhi based ShepHertz technologies closed a funding deal with Mumbai Angels and Kae Capital. This is the company's first formal round of funding. The size of the investment is undisclosed.
Started in 2010, ShepHertz provides a mobile backend as a service to developers which removes the need to code most of the backend services for a
mobile app. Over the years, they have expanded their product offerings to cloud APIs, a multiplayer gaming engine, an office administration tool and a mobile app building platform.We got in touch with Siddhartha Chandukar, the co-founder of ShepHertz to know more about the deal.
Two and a half years of struggle
Like many other startups, the company was bootstrapped in its early days and undertook services projects to sustain themselves. “We had some senior guys who joined us and we stopped taking services projects to focus completely on the product. While the good thing was that we were making good progress on the product, we had taken a severe beating on the revenue front. We did raise a small friends and family round, but most of us went without a salary for almost a year,” says Siddhartha. “It has been a tough ride but we survived. There was even a point in time when we had to live off our credit cards as we had no money.”
Products and scaling them
This round of funding will be used to expand the reach of their mobile backend as a service and multiplayer gaming network engine for app developers. Siddhartha says the funds will be used primarily for marketing and sales. This includes opening offices in the US and other parts of India. Apart from this, they will also look to develop the product better and hire talent.
“Our product is used globally, and we want to scale efforts further to take it into other markets. We’ve got around a thousand apps running off our service and a few paying enterprise customers. We’ve seen a lot of usage from Spain and Japan. Over the coming months, we will be looking to increase that, explains Siddhartha.
ShepHertz is looking for more investment and may raise its next round soon.
Always staying connected with investors
As an entrepreneur, Siddhartha believes in staying in touch with investors. He says, “They usually have a great understanding of the market that you’re working in. Some of their inputs might be wrong, but it is very important to not have an isolated view of what you’re working on. I was in touch with Mumbai Angels long before the funding and they’ve really helped me alot. Also having someone like Sasha (Mirchandani) from Kae Capital is great.
We also spoke to Anil Joshi from Mumbai Angels, who shared the thought process behind the investment. He says, “If you look the guy (Siddhartha) he’s really passionate about his product and that’s always a plus for us. It may not be the first product of its kind to come out, but coming from India, it is a great thing. Furthermore, they operate in the space of mobility, which is only bound to grow. We stitched all of these things together to make the investment.”
Hiren Asudani from Mumbai Angels will join ShepHertz’s board. Hiren’s past experience and professional contacts will benefit the startup. Hiren will work closely with Sasha Mirchandani in mentoring ShepHertz.
Visit ShepHertz here.