Little Black Book, a media-tech enterprise based out of New Delhi, has raised $1.2 million from IDG Ventures India and Indian Angel Network. Reaching out to over 1 million users every month, Little Black Book is currently available in Delhi and Bangalore as a website and app, and gives a local audience the best things to do in their city across interests and locations.
Little Black Book (LBB) curates recommendations across categories, providing unique local discoveries in innovative formats. An evolution from existing listingbased models, LBB uses content as a medium to drive an engaged audience to local enterprises, places and experiences. They partner with local small to medium scale brands as well as large global brands looking to engage with a local audience including Coca Cola, Airbnb, HTC, Samsung, Nestle.
Founded by Suchita Salwan, an Economics graduate from Hindu College who has worked with Wizcraft and the BBC, and co-founded by Dhruv Mathur, a Carnegie Mellon graduate who has worked with Deloitte and on his own startup GetFBPay.in, Little Black Book has seen tremendous organic growth stemming from a strong product market fit. “We have proven that urban consumers want to move beyond traditional Yelp-esque listing and aggregator platforms; they seek more than just food and event discoveries. As a media-tech business, our north star has been driving not just monthly active users, but delivering a product that draws a highly engaged and sticky audience” says Suchita.
Karan Mohla, Executive Director and Head of Consumer Tech & Media at IDG Ventures says “LBB represents the type of new-age disruptive digital media company that we as venture investors are excited to partner with. LBB has created an immersive and engaged platform for consumers and brands across Delhi and Bangalore today and expanding that to five more cities in the near future. Suchita and Dhruv are the foundational cornerstones of this exciting company and have demonstrated great focus and passion to build out a strong technology platform.”
Little Black Book raised a seed round in May 2015, with prolific angels including Rajan Anandan (MD Google Asia), Sachin Bhatia (co-founder MakeMyTrip, TrulyMadly) and Niraj Singh (co-founder Outbox Ventures, Spinny) participating. In just about 8 months since, LBB has seen over 800% growth in monthly active users and over 600% growth in revenue.
The company’s vision is to connect urban consumers to the best things to do, for them, in their city. “We’re excited to build out a platform that intelligently recommends experiences that are suited to a unique users tastes and preferences. Personalization and user retention is our key focus with respect to product” adds Dhruv.
Rishabh Mehta, one of the lead investor in this round and IAN nominated Board Director has this to say- “What is interesting about LBB is that their unit economics is just brilliant. With a small team and minimal burn they have been able to build a pretty impressive brand image for themselves. Considering the fact that they have over 1 million users engaged across just 2 cities, now the potential is huge for scaling up not only in India but globally.”
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