HMS Infotech, the company that owns the Hotelogix brand, was founded in 2008 by Prabhash Bhatnagar and Aditya Sanghi. Bhatnagar is an electrical engineer from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, and earlier also incubated Noida-based web solutions and elearning company Blue Apple Technologies. Sanghi, a graduate in computer science from Nagpur University, earlier led business strategy, marketing and sales as a shareholder at EDISPHER, a B2B data integration product company. The Hotelogix system enables customers a unified solution for activities such as front-desk operations, housekeeping and restaurants management.

The company has set a target for 15,000 customers in the next five years. Details on the current customer base were not available. It currently has 160 clients, including 30 in India. About 5,000 companies globally are using its services on a trial basis, says a company spokesperson. The company’s existing client base is spread across more than 40 countries Europe, South America and South East Asia.

Zansaar offers a range of home decor, garden and food products and was launched about a month ago. The site is promoted by Singapore-based Salar Online, which also owns lifestyle ecommerce site 20North (which is currently undergoing renovation). The company has offices and retail partnerships in Bangalore. Following the investment announced today, Accel partner Subrata Mitra joins the Zansaar board.

Earlier this year, Accel teamed up with serial entrepreneur Meena Ganesh to invest $5 million in a Series A round of funding in online jewellery and accessories store BlueStone. This month, Tiger Global led a Series C round of funding in online apparel retailer Myntra. The two investors have also reportedly invested $150 million in Flipkart, as part of the company’s Series D round of funding in January.

Image Courtesy: Zansaar

The 360-degree platform, powered by HTML5, has been work-in-progress at the company through most of last year. “The objective was to try and create something that would enable us to scale beyond being just a mobile-enabling site. An integrated solution differentiates us from the rest,” says co-founder and CEO Sharat Potharaju. A former investment banker with Merrill Lynch in New York, Potharaju and school buddy Ravi Pratap M teamed up in 2010 to start MobStac. Pratap, the company’s chief technology officer, earlier worked at US-based technology startup Hillcrest Labs and with Morgan Stanley’s technology group in New York.

One of the key business model changes, following the new platform, is that the basic MobStac version will no longer be available free. The basic plan is typically used by blogs and other small digital publishers. Such users will now be charged $5 per month. The company is currently offering a 30-day free trial on the basic plan and the founders are hopeful that most users will migrate to the paid plan. “We’d be happy to see 200 paid users by the end of the quarter. It would validate that we are on the right path,” says Potharaju.

The company also plans to expand more aggressively into overseas markets such as continental Europe and Latin America. It intends to set up an office in New York this summer. The fresh funding it plans to raise in June will chiefly aid these expansion plans. The Series B could be as small as $1 million or larger. “We really don’t know at this point,” says Potharaju. In November last year, MobStac raised its Series A round from Accel Partners and Mumbai Angels. The amount was not disclosed, though sources close to the deal say that it was in the region of $500,000.

Disclosure: StartupCentral’s mobile site is powered by MobStac

Bangalore-based BlueStone was founded late last year by Vidya Nataraj and Gaurav Singh Kushwaha. Prior to BlueStone, Nataraj was a strategy consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and also managed her family business at books retail chain Landmark. Kushwaha was earlier co-founder and CEO of online entertainment portal Chakpak. BlueStone offers third-party laboratory certification for all its products and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Most of the designs on offer are make-to-order. Payments can be made online or via demand drafts, cheques or money orders.

Following the investment, Accel Partners’ Prashanth Prakash and Meena Ganesh have joined the BlueStone board. Ganesh brings over a decade of experience in building successful startups and corporate organizations to the table. After setting up and scaling UK grocery chain Tesco’s operations in India, she teamed up with her husband K Ganesh to start online tutoring company TutorVista in 2005. The company was acquired by UK-based publishing group Pearson in late 2010 for Rs 577 crore (over $100 million) and Meena Ganesh now heads Pearson Education Services in India. Earlier the entrepreneur couple also co-founded and successfully sold call center firm CustomerAsset.

This is the second time in six months that the Chicago-based company has raised significant funding. In June, it raised a $25 million Series C round from Sequoia for an undisclosed stake. The fresh round of funds will be used to accelerate its growth and purchase some of the shares held by existing shareholders, said the press release. The company’s other venture capital shareholders include Accel Partners and FTV Capital. It is not clear yet whether these investors intend to sell part of its stakes in the company.

Accel was the first venture capital investor to enter Mu Sigma, shortly after the company was founded in 2004. The venture capital firm reportedly picked up a 10 per cent stake in the company for an investment of under $500,000 as part of a Series A round. Founder Dhiraj C Rajaram, a former Booz Allen Hamilton strategy consultant, reached out to Accel’s Bangalore-based partners Subrata Mitra and Prashanth Prakash through common friends and a deal was struck within three months. The company’s development center in Bangalore, which now employs 15,000 analytics professionals, was initially incubated at Accel’s office. FTV Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm that manages $1 billion across three funds, invested a reported $30 million in Mu Sigma in 2008, as part of the company’s Series B round of fund-raising.

What others are saying about the deal

• Mu Sigma raises $108 million from General Atlantic (The Economic Times)
• Mu Sigma raises $108 million to grow its big data services (VentureBeat)

In 2008, it launched a $60 million maiden fund following the acquisition of local seed investment firm Erasmic Venture Fund. Prior to the acquisition, Erasmic invested from a $10 million fund (now dubbed Accel India I) backed by Google and a group of angel investors. Its early investments included business analytics startup Mu Sigma and ecommerce company Myntra.

Accel India III comes amidst speculation in the media about portfolio company Flipkart raising a $150-200 million Series C round of funding from private equity investors. The deal could result in Accel’s first blockbuster exit in this market. Startupcentral earlier learned from sources close to the firm that Accel is looking to net $25 million from the sale of a 2 per cent stake in Flipkart (the total stake held is not known). It had invested $1 million in the Bangalore-based ecommerce company in 2009.

Partners Mahendran Balachandran, Shekhar Kirani, Subrata Mitra and Prasanth Prakash lead the 11-member Accel team in India. The firm has invested in 34 companies till date and notable investments, apart from Flipkart, include mobile value-added services startup Kirusa, ecommerce company Exclusively and healthcare devices company Perfint. The new fund, says the press release, will focus on deals in digital media, software-as-a-service, mobile, healthcare, education and Accel’s pet sector, the Internet.

Accel will invest between $10 million and $50 million in mid-sized companies, as part of its growth investing strategy, said the press statement. It is the latest in a growing line of venture capital investors who want to straddle early stage and growth opportunities here with equal focus. Others in the mould include Norwest Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and Sequoia Capital.

Since July 2008, when Accel acquired Bangalore-based seed-stage investor Erasmic Venture Fund, the firm has raised a $60 million India-specific fund, dubbed Accel India Venture Fund II, which invests in seed-to-early stage companies. The current portfolio includes Chakpak, Perfint, Myntra and Kaati Zone. The early-stage investment team comprises of Mahendran Balachandran, Gagan Kumar, Subrata Mitra and Prashanth Prakash.

It is not clear yet whether the firm will raise an India-specific growth fund or invest from its global capital pool. In December last year, the firm raised two funds amounting to over $1 billion – press release. The $480 million Accel Growth Fund is largely US-focused at present. The $525 million Accel London III fund has a mandate for early-stage and growth investments in Europe and Israel. Both funds target the information technology, Internet, media and software sectors, among others.