Leta GIVenture invests in social alarm Budist.ru

Investment company in advanced information technologies LETA GIV informs about investment in Budist.ru company, which is a social service the members of which wake each other in the morning with a phone call. The total investment of series A funding round was over $2 M, so the whole company is valued at more than $ 9 M.

The funds will be spent on speeding up the international expansion of the service, adding new languages, and testing of monetization models of the service on conditions that the original functionality will remain free for users.

Budist.ru is a social service that allows its users to wake up in the morning with a call preordered at the website, and for others - to take advantage of this invitation and awaken a stranger. The service was launched in September 5, 2011. Now it is available to all Russian-speaking segment of the Internet.

Investment in social web services is a new activity to LETA GIV fund. The company has an interesting idea and a growing base of followers since the start of the project; the services were used by more than 700,000 people; the audience is growing weekly by more than 10%. This rapid growth and fine audience allow making plans to monetize the resource.

We regard investing in Budist.ru Company as one of the most promising direction in the development of social projects. Budist.ru combines multiple ideas that will always be in demand by users. This is primarily the creation of a good mood, pleasant awakening and good emotions throughout the day - says Sergey Toporov, the chief investment manager of LETA Group Investment & Venture. - We believe in voice social services, we are confident in international success of Budist.ru project and we believe that there will be a day when every alarm clock will be able to wake you up with a call of a person.

Since its launch, Budist.ru has managed to achieve significant results; the project has already been awarded as a Startup of the Year and won Startup Monthly competition in Silicon Valley.

The cooperation with Leta Group venture fund brings strategic value for us - says Tatul Adzhamyan, the director of development Budist.ru. - We consider them as a partner to give not only money to the company but also its experience, advancement opportunities and cooperation with other projects the group.