Twitter Co-Founder to Invest in Kerala-based Startup Sieve

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
In a first major initiative in the state, microblogging and social networking service provider Twitter’s Co-Founder will invest in a startup mentored by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), it was announced at a global conference here on Friday.

Twitter Co-Founder and Angel investor Biz Stone, through a video conference, informed that he would be investing in Kochi-based startup Sieve, during the inaugural ceremony of the second edition of ‘Huddle Kerala 2019,’ one of Asia’s largest congregations on startup ecosystem.

The two-day event at Hotel Leela Raviz, Kovalam is being organised by the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) in association with Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

Founded by Sanjay Nediyara, a hearing-impaired entrepreneur, Sieve is a complete platform for freelancers and agencies that provide the infrastructure from websites to digital signatures and all way up to invoicing and payment management. The company currently serves in the US market and will soon be expanding to Europe.

Commenting on the investment, Stone said: “I have used the product of Sieve as a freelancer. As an Angel, I consider the person first and the product second. I find Sanjay as a dedicated, empathetic and extremely hardworking individual.”

He also added that he was proud of associating with him and the company from Kerala. However, Stone did not disclose the investment amount.

Sanjay said this is one of rare investments made by Twitter India and the first in Kerala. “Our larger vision is to build truly Internet companies in the cloud where people can form companies and work from anywhere in the world. Our other investor is Friends of Oorjja, which is an ecosystem for empowering differently-abled community. Friends of Oorjja consists of senior professionals from banking/finance industry, UK, and Otis Elevators company,” he informed.

Sanjay was selected as one of the Forbes fellows in 2018 and he has bagged Reach Award instituted by Eric Weihenmayer foundation in the US. He was also invited by Google to attend their largest developer conference Google IO as their guest.

Earlier in the day, social media major Facebook announced that it was gearing up to make substantial investments in technology start-ups of India.