New Delhi, India, March 20, 2013 – LocalCircles (www.localcircles.com) the world’s first comprehensive local social network for daily life, announced today that Mr. Nadir Godrej, Managing Director of Godrej Industries has invested, in his personal capacity, an undisclosed sum of early stage capital into LocalCircles.

Also, Mr. Nadir Godrej and Mr. R. C. Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti Suzuki now serve on the Advisory Board of the company. Explaining the same, Mr. Godrej said, “I thought this was an unusual development. They are trying to bring local communities together, bringing considerable amount of social value, and that attracted me. I strongly believe that LocalCircles will be a key enabler in simplifying daily lives of people through credible information.” LocalCircles, which was launched by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Delhi Mrs. Sheila Dikshit earlier this month announced that it will soon be starting the process to raise an additional $2M for its next round of financing from individual and corporate investors, angel networks, and venture capital firms.

“We have had initial conversations with some prospect investors and there is strong interest. However, it is very important for the company and the investors to have strong alignment on the vision and values. While E-Commerce has already become an established industry in India, Trusted Local Social Media is still in its early stages both globally and in India. Building real identity based closed trusted local social networks requires a very different approach than open social networking platforms, said Sachin Taparia, Chairman and Managing Director of LocalCircles. “If done effectively though, it can help people easily find credible information required to run daily life, make finding assistance easier, bring back the sense of community and empower citizens”, added Mr. Taparia. The company plans to spend a significant portion of the current and future capital for community outreach, a program that involves sending physical invitations with unique invitation codes to the neighborhoods across Delhi/NCR.

“Building trust in the local communities is fundamental to the usefulness of LocalCircles platform and, therefore, we have designed the sign-up process that requires these unique invitation codes. The unique sign up code ensures that only a resident of Vasant Vihar can join the Vasant Vihar Neighborhood Community. Once the user is registered, they can find their Work Place, School and other local Interest based circles (Pediatrics, Cardiology, Security, Yoga etc) to further engage with other trusted locals”, said Mukesh Gupta, President and CEO of LocalCircles. LocalCircles’ members can also find the best of the best 2000 trusted local businesses across 120 categories and what their neighbors, colleagues, co-parents, local family/friends are saying about them.

The money raised will also be used for continued development of the platform and for replicating the model in the 8 metros in India starting later this year after a successful build out in Delhi/NCR. LocalCircles is already receiving few queries a day from local businesses about how they could advertise on the platform. However, the company’s current focus is on community building. Advertising and marketing partnerships with good businesses trusted by the community is something the company will work towards in later part of this year.

For further info contact:
Suchismitaa Dhar
LocalCircles.org
media@localcircles.com
9953507669