Pritish Nair, who was previously at Prodigy Finance and GrabOn, has been appointed as India’s head of the platform. The service – which is currently free to use, will soon have a one-tier subscription model for its users.
Backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Kotu Management, LunchClub’s active user base in India has grown 20x since it began beta operations in mid-2020, cofounder and chief executive Vladimir Novakowski told ET.
“We saw pretty rapid growth across the board, but I think India was actually far higher than some of the major US cities,” Novakowski said. “It was interesting to see that people from different industries, including media, entertainment, finance, and not just tech people, are signing up.”
LunchClub aims to create a user base of 100,000 members in India by the end of 2021. For this, it has partnered with shared workspace provider WeWork as well as educational institutions such as the Indian School of Business and the Indian Institute of Management.
Founded in 2017 by Nowakowski and Scott Wu, the social network raised $24.2 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed at a valuation of $100 million. It has raised a total of $30 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Coteau.
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The company claims that it has achieved 15X growth in 2020 alone. It launched as an invitation-only concierge service for in-person introductions, but rolled out to video calls when the pandemic hit last March. This platform can be accessed through mobile app or web browser.
“India is a leading global destination when it comes to professional networking,” Novakowski said in a statement. “After the pandemic, while the need to establish quality professional connections remains intact, there is a need for a channel that can help people have meaningful conversations without crowds.” “Being a digital AI-based platform, we are able to provide access to the most relevant professionals across the globe,” he added.
The platform can also serve as a networking hub for home startups, Nair said.
“Already ranked third on the global list of countries with the most numbers of unicorns, there is a huge potential to speed things up with the networking tools LunchClub provides – building teams, increasing investments, engaging service providers or anything in between,” he said. .