5 months ago Shravani Maddirala
The chairman of the esteemed Mahindra Group, Anand Mahndra, invests $ 1 Million in Gurgaon's Startup studio Hapramp with its flagship product being 'GoSocial', a social media platform which forms the interface of a perfect confluence of the creative spirit and information economy. Just a day after the announcement, the platform was privy to unprecedented traffic, even causing it to crash for a while. GoSocial provides a virtual public platform aimed to help harness the flair of budding artists in all fields – writing, photography, art and many more by aiding in inspiration and providing constructive challenges with fixed deadlines.
Founded in 2018 by five students of IIT Vadodara, Hapramp was the perfect confluence sought by Anand Mahindra. "This is a massive approval of our mission to give creators the right to their content. The fact that this comes from Mr. Anand Mahindra, someone who we admire and who has always supported creators, gives us confidence," said Shubhendra Vikram, co-founder and CEO of Hapramp. "We have big plans, and we intend to stick to our belief of empowering creators and building an ecosystem where they can learn, compete, and win rewards."
"Took 2 years, but I finally found the start-up I was looking for! Hapramp is indigenous, built by 5 young founders & brings together a best-in-class combination of creativity, technology & data protection. Look out for GoSocial app, their social networking platform," Mahindra tweeted. As tweeted in 2018, Mahindra embarked on his search for indigenous social networking startups. Assisted by a pioneer in the field, former Mahindra executive and digital transformation expert Jaspreet Bindra, they stumbled upon Hapramp on their scout for Indian startups that would reward creators, protect personal data, and be built on next-generation technologies.
"The Hapramp team is building a Web 3.0 social network. It is built on emerging digital technologies, has a solid business model which rewards content creators, protects personal data, and best of all, is built here locally in India," said Bindra who has signed on as an executive advisor and mentor to the Hapramp founding team. He was clearly impressed beyond measure and rightly so.
Available on both Android and ios,the platform has aleady garnered 50,000 users in less than three months. The founders proclaim that the current focus is on building userbase and monetisation is to follow eventually. "We are targeting one lakh users in the next three months and 10 lakh by the end of the year in India. We also plan to take the platform to South East Asian countries, we will look at that around October," Vikram said.
With just 12 employees, the founders are based in Gurugram, while the staff is located across the country. "We will continue to operate a lean team but we are looking at hiring. By end of the year, we should be at 25-30 people," Vikram said.
Hapramp was earlier incubated by Gurugram-based sector-agnostic incubator Huddle which has also invested an undisclosed amount into the company. "Since inception, the Hapramp team has worked with speed, frugality and a larger vision of enhancing lives, through the simplicity of an app that holds a true value of rewards on the go, with a large notion of educating and entertaining their users," said Sanil Sachar, founding partner, Huddle.
Along with GoSocial, Hapramp operates 1Ramp.io, a social media platform powered by Steem Blockchain, and Asteria Protocol that will help platforms to privately and securely treat public data. Both these platforms are expected to debut in the coming year. Truly being one-of-a-kind, Hapramp is much needed in today's fast paced world populated with a plethora of varied talents in wait of recognition and development.
Tags: Anand Mahindra, Freshworks, Gurgaon's startup, Hapramp
She is an avid reader with a special place for classics in her heart. As a student of literature, mass communication, and political science, she shares a passion for writing and an interest in law. She is an environmental activist in Hyderabad and works with NGOs caring for underprivileged kids. Being an earnest conversationalist, she believes everyone has a story to tell.