Seva Search Raises $1.3 Million To Connect Consumers With Local Businesses –
Summary
Investors in the Series A round include Fortify.vc, Ed Mathias, Tim Sykes, Jay Virdy, David Eisner, Andrew Bachman, Jigar Shah, Krishna Subramanian, Vishal Gurbaxani, Arjun Dev Arora, Saket Saurabh, plus angels Paul Silber, David Krauskopf, John Lapides, Roger Richter, Glen Hellman and John Cammack. Initially, the company found that trying to get businesses to sign up to participate in the service was difficult – they didn’t want to be pitched another place to advertise. Whomever answers first and who meets the consumer’s needs for the date and time (and, in the future, price), will be the business that ends up connecting with the customer. Businesses are able to get the incoming requests via text and email, too, but need to dial Seva’s 1-800 number to reach the customers. Seva Call has been in private beta testing, but will be rolling out to the D.C. Metro area in a month, and nationwide by the beginning of 2012.