Twitter co-founder just invested in Lookup. Know more

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone invested in Lookup, a free local shopping app that connects shoppers with businesses.

Lookup, which started its operations last year in October, is a mobile application that uses chat to disrupt local commerce in India.

The app, available on both Android and iOS, eliminates the need to call a retailer and wait for a response. It assimilates all the requirements from buying groceries, home delivery, to product/price enquiry into one app.

On Wednesday, Lookup raised Series A funding from Stone. He has joined the team as an investor and advisor. Lookup will be using the funds towards investment in expanding its merchant base for convenience of its users and to branch out in newer geographies.

Started by Innoz’s Deepak Ravindran, Lookup had already registered over 2, 00,000 downloads and answered over three million queries within about five months of its launch.

“I'm honoured to be a part of Deepak’s next big project and I am truly impressed by what he has already accomplished in his life. I’m very excited about working with such an inspiring entrepreneur, whom I share common ideologies with,” said Stone.

Lookup raised a total of $382,000 in its seed round, from multiple investors including Infosys’ Kris Gopalakrishnan, Teru Sato, DeNA and MKS Group (Switzerland).

“I am extremely thrilled that Biz Stone is personally investing in our Series A round. It is almost surreal. His beliefs and ideals are very fascinating and I am glad that someone so altruistic and with such a genuine moral compass is a mentor and advisor to me and my company,” said Ravindran.

He added that receiving this funding was like getting another opportunity to blazon the world with innovation. “We plan to integrate all the offline businesses into the online world and connect them to their customers. The final goal is to make Lookup a global phenomenon and hope to ease the busy lives of the people,” said Ravindran, when asked about future plans.

Going forward, Lookup will introduce more categories, payment options, NLP/Artificial Intelligence, deep linking to other apps as well as add a virtual store on its platform for vendors to sell through Lookup besides fostering partnerships with businesses in newer verticals such as education.