Today masses mostly interact with their popular celebrities either through Twitter or Instagram, which are highly over-crowded platforms and where the scope of personalized messaging is very minimal. Trying to address this critical gap is celebrity messaging and engagement platform Wysh. The platform has raised $2 Mn in series A round that was led by Kalaari Capital and also witnessed participation of several existing investors including Whiteboard Capital, Touchstone Equities and AngelList.
Founded last year in December, Wysh had raised $1 Mn in pre-series A round from Whiteboard Capital, Touchstone Equities and AngelList. This barely one month old startup is likely to utilize the latest capital infusion for its marketing strategy and to attract more popular celebrities on the board. Till date, the platform has almost 50 celebrities on board, most of them hailing from Northern as well as Southern entertainment industry. Some of the top celebrities include television actors like Arjit Taneja, Kanika Mann, Priyamani and Sree Mukhi.
The company has the ambitious plan to add nearly 1,000 celebrities by end of the current year. But celebrities that will be brought on board will be not merely hail from television and cinema world, since the platform will also look to bring singers and sports celebrities on board.
Darshit Vora, Principal at Kalaari Capital, said conventional marketing avenues like influencer marketing and brand endorsement simply don’t allow two –way personalized communication between celebrities and fans. Therefore a platform like Wysh can capitalize on this and build something valuable as well as scalable from business perspective.
The company is founded by three young ambitious entrepreneurs – Mahesh Gogineni, Varun MS and Manan Maheshwari. The co-founder believe that India (like all other countries) is transforming into celebrity based society where fan’s incessant need for personalized communication is always going to be their.
