Buzzd – an emerging, location-based mobile entertainment company – has raised its Series A round. An announcement is forthcoming, the founders Nihal Mehta and Deepen Shah tell me in this interview when they recently stopped by the Vator studios to talk about the young site. Buzzd – which was a finalist at the Nokia’s Mobile Rules ’08 competition (where I was a judge) – lets anyone locate where their friends are and inform them of what’s going on around them. It’s about “getting real-time user-generated content,” as Nihal explains it. According to Deepen, the No. 1 reason their customers – typically 18-to-35 and urban – use the service is to find out what to do in a particular neighborhood on a given evening.
Given the competitive environment around location-based mobile services, Buzzd will have some challenges. But in my opinion, the service is very useful and this duo has a lot of expertise in marketing and mobile, that you might just want to take a chance with them. If they don’t succeed with this venture, there’s always American Idol. (Check out their video pitch in their company profile to know what I mean.)
Also, check out the interview to hear what they have to say about competition and/or cooperation with Yahoo.
