Local discovery firm Little Black Book raises $1 Mn from Blume, IDG, IAN

Delhi-based Local recommendations startup for places, services and events curated city and lifestyle guide Little Black Book has raised $1 million led by Blume Ventures.

The funding round also saw participation from existing investors IDG Ventures and Indian Angel Network.

With this investment, the total capital raised by LBB stands at Rs 15.6 crore.

Little Black Book (LLB) plans to use the latest proceeds to expand its geographical footprint and scale its revenue streams through integrated offerings to its consumers and local businesses.

The capital raised will also be used to enable payment transactions on the platform as LBB looks to offer end-to-end solutions to discover and buy.

“International markets with a millennial audience is going to be the next big opportunity for us, along with closing the loop in between information, intent, and transaction within our product itself,” said Suchita Salwan and Dhruv Mathur, Co-Founders, Little Black Book.

Owned and operated by Iluminar Media, Little Black Book was founded in 2012 by Suchita Salwan and Dhruv Mathur. LBB started as an online discovery platform for food, events, lifestyle, culture, travel, and shopping.

LBB uses community driven content as a medium to drive an engaged audience to local enterprises, places, and experiences. It partners with brands looking to engage with a local audience.

Also Read: Blume Ventures to raise $80-100 Mn third fund by march next year

The startup offers over 30,000 recommendations across 18 categories at present and claims to have grown its traffic to over 200% in one year with an active user base of 2 million while expanding revenues over 500%.

The platform is available in eight cities in India including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai and will look at Hyderabad as the last stop in its India expansion strategy.

Earlier, Little Black Book had raised $1.2 million from IDG Ventures India and Indian Angel Network (IAN) in March last year and secured a seed investment of $150,000 from a group of angel investors including Rajan Anandan and Sachin Bhatia in 2015.

Other players active in the same space are TownTrot, Nearify, EventsHigh, GoYaNo, to name a few.

Little Black Book: Website