Bobble’s face recognition technology converts your selfie into a cartoon bobble head, and you can write text on stickers in your own language
Delhi-based Talent Unlimited Online Services, owner of Bobble Keyboard, an Artificial Intelligence-powered keyboard app for smartphones, is in advanced talks to raise Series B funding from several international investors, a source privy to the discussions told e27.
The Delhi-based startup, which in 2015 had secured an undisclosed amount in Series A from SAIF Partners, has already got commitment from a couple of VCs for the new round. This is going to be a financial-cum-strategic funding round, and is expected to be closed in two months.
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“As long as I know, the company is in an expansion mode, so a major portion of the funds is likely to go into hiring. It is also eyeing markets like Indonesia. I don’t know any other details,” the person told this publication.
An e-mail sent to Bobble Co-founder and Managing Director Mohd. Wassem seeking more details did not elicit any response till the time of publishing this article.
Bobble was founded in 2015 by Wassem, a Management graduate from Delhi University, and IIT Delhi alumnus Ankit Prasad. Bobble is an app (available on Android and iOS platforms) that makes mobile conversations more expressive and personal. Bobble’s face recognition technology converts your selfie into a cartoon bobble head, and you can write text on stickers in your own language (it supports over 20 languages). Users can click a selfie and get unlimited stickers, fonts and GIFs with their face. They can then be shared on instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, WeChat, Hike and Line. The keyboard can also automatically predict emojis, memes, stickers, and GIFs for WhatsApp.
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Bobble’s other features include glide typing, voice typing, word correction, keyboard photo themes (users can customise their keyboard with their favourite photos or colours), cool new fonts (to make your typing fun), emojis, memes and emoticons. As you type in, Bobble keyboard shows relevant stickers and GIFs right over your WhatsApp or any other chat app.
In addition to Indian languages such as Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Arabic, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Punjabi, Telugu, Malayalam, Odia, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri, Assamese, Manipuri, Dogri, Santali, Konkani, Marwari, Maithili, Sindhi and Nepali, Bobble also offers a keyboard in Bahasha.
In an interaction a few weeks ago, Wassem had told e27 that Bobble is currently working on a new camera feature which will enable users to click and send picture through the keyboard on any platform. This feature comes with image and video filters that would enable users to add filters on videos while shooting.
In a recent report about Indic keyboards, Bobble with close to 10 million downloads was ranked second right after Google Keyboard. Bobble will soon go live on Simeji, Japan’s #1 keyboard owned by Baidu. Baidu has renamed its keyboard as Facemoji.
So far, Bobble has raised three rounds of funding. Flipkart Co-founder Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are also investors in Bobble.
The post (Exclusive) India-based smart keyboard app Bobble close to raising Series B from international investors appeared first on e27.