USA’s Twitter makes first Indian acquisition with startup ZipDial
21 Jan 2015 1:39 AM GMT
Twitter has acquired Bengaluru- based mobile VAS firm ZipDial to mark its first acquisition in India, as the microblogging firm aims to expand its presence in one of world’s largest Internet markets.
Though the deal size was not disclosed, reports suggest the monetary value is between $30-40 million (between Rs 185 crore-Rs 247 crore).
The Indian startup, which was already working as a partner with Twitter, offers services like missed calls for user verification and alerts to its customers. “India is one of the fastest growing countries for us. We have been focussed on growing our audience here and this acquisition will dramatically accelerate that strategy,” Twitter Market Director (India and Southeast Asia) Rishi Jaitly said.
He added that the acquisition will also help Twitter strengthen its engineering efforts in the country.
He said the ZipDial platform is a “perfect match for India”, which is a mobile-first country.
Founded in 2010 by Valerie Wagoner and Amiya Pathak, ZipDial has built a mobile platform that lets people follow and engage with content across interfaces, combining SMS, voice, mobile web, and access to mobile apps to bridge users from offline to online.
ZipDial allows users to make a “missed call” to a brand, following which the caller begins receiving inbound content and further engagement on their phone in real time through voice, SMS or an app notification.
Though the deal size was not disclosed, reports suggest the monetary value is between $30-40 million (between Rs 185 crore-Rs 247 crore).
The Indian startup, which was already working as a partner with Twitter, offers services like missed calls for user verification and alerts to its customers. “India is one of the fastest growing countries for us. We have been focussed on growing our audience here and this acquisition will dramatically accelerate that strategy,” Twitter Market Director (India and Southeast Asia) Rishi Jaitly said.
He added that the acquisition will also help Twitter strengthen its engineering efforts in the country.
He said the ZipDial platform is a “perfect match for India”, which is a mobile-first country.
Founded in 2010 by Valerie Wagoner and Amiya Pathak, ZipDial has built a mobile platform that lets people follow and engage with content across interfaces, combining SMS, voice, mobile web, and access to mobile apps to bridge users from offline to online.
ZipDial allows users to make a “missed call” to a brand, following which the caller begins receiving inbound content and further engagement on their phone in real time through voice, SMS or an app notification.
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