Online retail giant Amazon has made its third investment in an Indian start-up, acquiring a stake in Hyderabad-based Zippr for about $6 million. Zippr, a mobile-based application, helps users convert their home or office addresses into short 8-character codes and share them with friends and other businesses.
Earlier, Amazon had invested $10 million in QwikCilver Solutions, a Bengaluru-based online gift company, and $60 million in online financial marketplace BankBazaar.
Zippr is owned by Ten20 Infomedia Pvt Ltd and had raised ₹6 crore in angel funding from the Indian Angel Network. The latest funding round was led by Sanjay Mehta and Siddharth Ladsariya.
Amazon and Zippr did not respond to email queries from
According to sources close to the development, Zippr will use the funds to expand its technology infrastructure and scale the team up.
The company was founded last year by Aditya Vuchi, a serial entrepreneur who had previously run a media company called MediaMint.
The company says its app solves the problem of sharing complex addresses with others after shortening them. This is similar to what TinyURL does for websites.
Easier delivery For Amazon, the investment could be aimed at speeding up the delivery process as short codes would be easier to manage. Zippr’s pinpoint codes should help Amazon’s delivery boys, who make thousands of deliveries each day, find a customer’s address without having to seek directions.
Last year the retail giant had announced a $2-billion investment in India. Amazon chief Jeff Bezos had said he sees huge potential in the Indian economy and for the growth of e-commerce here.
The Indian start-up ecosystem is increasingly attracting investments from the bigger players. Last year, Facebook acquired Bengaluru-based Little Eye Labs, a start-up with a software tool that analyses the performance of Android apps.
In January, Twitter had acquired another Bengaluru-based ZipDial.
Clarification
In response to this story, Amazon India's spokesperson said Amazon has not made any investments in Zippr.