Press Release Summary: Reliance Technology Ventures Limited (RTVL), the corporate venture capital arm of the Reliance ADA Group, has directed the investment of an undisclosed amount in Pelago, Inc. RTVL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Capital Ltd.
Press Release Body: May 27, 2008, Mumbai, India
Reliance Technology Ventures Limited (RTVL), the corporate venture capital arm of the Reliance ADA Group, has directed the investment of an undisclosed amount in Pelago, Inc. RTVL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Capital Ltd.
1. Pelago offers a new break-through mobile and Web-based service that is at the intersection of social networking and local discovery. The service is offered under the brand name 'Whrrl'.
2. The Whrrl service catalogs peoples' activities, chronicling an individual's history of places visited and events attended through icons pinpointed on Whrrl's built-in mapping application. Whrrl users and their friends can then rate, review, and comment on these places and events.
3. Whrrl shares user-contributed information with others through a real-time micro-blogging feature called the "Whrrld Feed." Whrrl users check in via SMS, the Whrrl mobile application, or the Whrrl Web site, instantly updating others on their location or status through their Whrrld Feed. Whrrl's \"passive visitization\" technology can precisely detect if a person is walking into a store or merely walking by.
4. Whrrl also has a powerful filtering feature which allows users to quickly find places and events based on a combination of factual and social criteria like hours of operation, distance from current location, cuisine type, show times and friends' ratings. This filtering capability in Whrrl opens entirely new discovery pathways by allowing users to look at the map and search through the eyes of the people they know and the places they go.
5. The Whrrl service is currently available nationally in the U.S., with a database of millions of interesting businesses and events. In select metro areas, Whrrl provides industry-leading location data, going down to details like happy hours, and features ranging from free wi-fi to fireplaces to outdoor seating. This deep data experience is currently available in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Austin, Chicago, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Kansas City, Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Miami, with more metro areas to come.
6. Other investors in Pelago include Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions (Founder and ex-CEO, Amazon), T-Ventures, DAG Ventures and Trilogy Equity Partners.
According to Harshal Shah, CEO of RTVL, \"Pelago offer consumers and advertisers a unique proposition by combining local search and discovery with an underlying social networking flavor. While it offers consumers to discover, rate and review places and events, Pelago also enables advertisers to get better ROI through it's highly precise location based advertising platform."
According to Jeff Holden, CEO of Pelago, "Whrrl allows you to discover the world through the eyes of your friends and other people you trust. In this way, it makes a person's social network valuable in a completely new way. We've created Whrrl as an indispensable real-world mobile companion for our users and we find it extremely gratifying that Reliance Technology Ventures recognizes this potential and supports us as a vital strategic investor."
About Reliance Technology Ventures Limited
RTVL has advised and / or invested in deals to the tune of over $4 billion. Yatra.com, India's largest on-line travel portal, Sequans Communications, Stoke Inc, E-Band Communications Corporation, Seedfund are some of its portfolio investments. RTVL had also advised Reliance Globalcom in the acquisition of U.K. based eWave World and in the $300 million acquisition of US based Yipes Holding, Inc, a leading provider of managed Ethernet Services. RTVL has also led the investment into an undisclosed technology company which formed the basis of the largest venture capital transaction in India. RTVL invests in leading edge technologies, disruptive business models and technology enabled companies around the world.
About Pelago
Pelago, Inc. is an early-stage company based in Seattle developing a new generation of consumer experiences based on breakthrough technology, including Whrrl, a new mobile and Web-based service at the intersection of social networking and local discovery. Pelago was founded by former senior executives from Amazon.com. www.pelago.com
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