Hoppr, the first initiative from Bharti-Softbank backed company Y2CF is set to go live with six telecom operators, MediaNama has learned from reliable sources. The company, founded by former Bharti Airtel VAS Head Md. Imthiaz initially launched the project as Musstbuy, but the location based check-in’s and daily deal offerings are only a part of the larger game-plan, we’ve heard. Bharti Airtel is expected to announce the investment – around Rs 35 crore according to our sources – to the stock exchanges later this week. Note that all our information is source based, and both Imthiaz and Kavin Bharti Mittal (Head of Strategy and New Product Development at BSB), declined to comment on this story.
The launch of Hoppr is likely to be next week, but what is remarkable about the venture is that it’s a check-in service that is expected to launch across six major telecom operators – a no mean feat given that telecom operators tend to be territorial, and fact that this is venture backed by the Bharti-Softbank joint venture.
The company has been hiring aggressively over the last couple of months, and has hired, in the recent past, Y2CF has hired Gaurav Sharma as Head for Analytics & Operational Excellence from analytics major Mu Sigma, Rohit Awasthi from Snapdeal as Head of Online & Communities, and Sanat Thite as Head of Web Strategy.
The Musstbuy pilot is reporting around 40,000 check-in’s per week, and it’s pertinent to keep in mind that India has over 680 million active mobile connections, and even though a majority of these are based in B and C class towns, the scale that a mobile deals service offers is something which the Internet can’t. Daily deals sites have struggled to break into the telecom operator ecosystem – Snapdeal is the only major deals business that is mobile, and it took quite some time to launch its first mobile service, recently with Tata Docomo. Snapdeal has diversified into e-commerce, and as more and more businesses launch deals sections and couponing, eBay India among them, the deals space will become a commoditized. The focus for Hoppr will be on engagement and gamification of check-ins, and deals and commerce as a means of monetization.
However, that isn’t the end of it: according to our sources, Y2CF has also been in talks for an instant messenger application across telecom operators in India.