Celebrity wishing platform Wysh raises $2 million funding led by Kalaari
With the infusion of new funds, Wysh will look to strengthen its marketing and celebrity acquisition on the platform.
Celebrity engagement and wishing platform, Wysh has raised $2 million in Series A led by Kalaari capital. Existing investors Whiteboard Capital, Touchstone Equities, AngelList and new investors AET fund, IIMK, GEMBA capital also participated in this round.
Launched in December 2019 by Mahesh Gogineni, Varun MS and Manan Maheshwari, the Hyderabad based company provides celebrities with a way to engage with their fans while allowing fans to come closer to their favourite stars.
Darshit Vora, principal at kalaari capital, said, "Access to celebrities has always been aspirational and Indian celebrities are no less than demigods in their own ways. At the same time, in the age of social media, celebrities also want to open a two-way channel with fans and add on to their following. This is why you see celebrities do Instagram Lives and be active on social media. However, apart from brand endorsements and influencer marketing across social media channels, they really don't have any other platforms. Hence we believe Wysh is the right product and team to build something valuable to everyone."
Wysh is a two-way engagement and video request platform that enables fans to get personalized video messages from their favourite celebrities.
Mahesh Gogineni, CEO, Wysh, said, "In India, we love our celebrities and our desire to connect with them and make them part of our lives is unparalleled compared to any other part of the world. Wysh as a two-sided platform enables fans to make their dreams come true and celebs to connect with their fans in a way that wasn't possible before. Hence, we believe we can scale up WYSH in India quickly and the current fundraise will help us do that. Over the coming months, we will be expanding our celebrity base across different categories such as TV, Movies, Sports, Singers etc and also across different regions of India."
According to the company, so far 50 plus celebrities from both North and South India including Arjit Taneja, Kanika Mann, Priyamani and Shreemukhi have signed up on the app, promoting a new age way of wishing the loved ones. The company aims to on-board many famous celebrities within a month and more than 1000 celebrities by the year-end on the platform, it added.
WYSH
Kanika (Indian actress)
KALAARI
Digital / 1 day ago