Startup Village company Flamingos Media gets acquired by Kreata Global
Flamingos Media is a Digital & Mobile marketing company based at Startup Village, Kochi. Founded by a bunch of youngsters, the company gives services in the field of Mobile Applications, Facebook Applications, Social Media & Viral Marketing, etc. In a recent announcement, the company has been acquired by Kreata Global a Facebook preferred marketing developer based in UAE. Flamingos is a 6 member team and under the new structure, the team will continue to operate independently.
The beginning
Anup Mohan's entrepreneurial career started right from campus back in 2008 when he was in his 5th semester. As a part of his academic project, Anup developed a portal to connect all the campuses in Kerala and it was called Cazpo – The Campus Portal. The venture didn't scale due to various reasons but a turning point came when he met Deepak Ravindran, Founder and CEO at Innoz. “He was very much impressed by the efforts I have put to develop and execute Cazpo and he invited me to join Innoz. With full heart I joined as the Manager- Vas – Innoz Technologies,” says Anup.
This is where Anup learnt the basics of business. “Each and every second of my life at innoz was inspiring and challenging and the thought of building another startup rooted inside me. I served innoz for one year and then quit to pursue my own venture,” says Anup.
Flamingos
Based in Kerala, Anup realized a gap in the jewellery and clothing industry. “Most of the big firms had little knowledge about the scope of digital marketing and this is where the idea for Flamingos came,” says Anup. Many of the leading players in the jewelry segment in India have their roots in Kerala and Anup decided to go after them for business. He had also known the importance of a diverse team by now and got together a small team with varying skill sets to set the ball rolling.
They got Josalukkas as their first client for who Flamingos created a Facebook app called “The Golden Moment”. The app did well and the management was happy enough to to give them a one year contract. They replicated the success in the clothing segment with another marque client- Pulimoottil Silks for whom they made an app called "My wedding saree".
The growth and the acquisition
“With the above 2 successful stories we expanded our activities and were able to crack some of the reputed clients such as Asianet channel , Dream Hotel Cochin, etc.,” says Anup. With a current run rate of INR 1.8 lakhs per month with a team of six members, the team is projecting for INR 12 million by the next fiscal year.
With respect to the acquisition, a major break through happened when Anup met Deepan Parameswaran , Executive Director – Kreata Global. Deepan was impressed with the Flamingos team and the clientèle they had which led him to give an acquisition offer. The team will be a part of Kreata Global but will operate independently from India. The amount for which Flamingo has been acquired has not been disclosed. Anup also has more plans for the future, “I am always fascinated by the intersection between web technology & transactional businesses . Stories like redBus, Bookmyshow always inspired me and I want to do something in that direction in the near future."
This is a great story coming from Kerala immediately after we wrote about Ahmedabad-based Nirmit Parikh's Cruxlight that was acquired by Silicon Valley company Kno which has in turn been acquired by Intel.