FindYogi Raises Funding of Rs. 55 Lakhs from Raju Vanapala, Founder-CEO, Way2SMS

FindYogi.com, the Bangalore based Price comparison startup that helps consumers make better buying decision through its comparative platform, we had covered a few days ago, has raised funding of Rs.55 Lakhs from Raju Vanapala, the founder-CEO of Way2SMS.

The startup said that the funding will be utilized to strengthen the technology and data team.

FindYogi started in Oct 2012 with the sole vision of making shopping decisions easier for consumers. The startup collects first hand data about standard products and through its proprietary algorithm scores the products based on features. The application also suggests if a given product is rightly priced, as compared to alternatives available in the market. The web application currently helps with purchases for mobiles and tablet computers. New product categories like laptop, camera and other consumer durables will be added over the next few months.

The founders of FindYogi, Naman Sarawagi and Anil Bhat have worked for some well-known Indian and international web and technology companies before taking the entrepreneurial jump. While Naman was part of the initial team at Freecharge, now funded by Sequoia Capital, and ZipDial, Anil was part of the technology team at Novell and Yahoo for over 6 years.

Naman Sarawagi, founder and CEO of FindYogi, said, “With FindYogi we are looking to reduce buyer’s remorse amongst Indian consumers by helping them make better buying decision. A bad purchase decision is not only painful for the consumer but also bad for the industry in the long run. We still have a long way to go in terms of product and reach before we can claim that we have solved the problem successfully.” Commenting on the investment, Naman said, “I believe Raju’s investment brings in more than just money for us. His experience of running one of the most used and highly profitable web applications in India is a great value add as a mentor.”

Commenting on the investment, Raju Vanapala said, “The space around shopping assistance and buying decisions is interesting. Given the buzz around ecommerce in India, consumers are coming online for shopping related activity. Though a lot of them may not end up buying online but the decision making still happens on the web. Given the founder’s work at previous startups, I trust FindYogi should make it big in the space.”