“Bump is just a gimmick for young people” says DubMeNow CEO Manoj Ramnani. DubMeNow (“Dub” for short) is a real business, he implies, and he can prove it. Dub has been on a tear the last few months in all aspects of their business.
They’ve got real revenue: over $2.7M projected for this fiscal year. They’ve raised over $2.8 million in funding thus far, led by Syncom Ventures with other undisclosed angel investors participating. Furthermore, they have found traction in the education market and are soon-to-be deployed to over 750 Universities as a contact-sharing option for students.
Their mobile application, DubMeNow, has been downloaded nearly 1 million times – still dwarfed by the 7 million of their Y Combinator- and Sequoia-funded competitor, Bump. Bump and Dub are in a battle to become the de facto contact information-sharing application for mobile phones. Bump is clearly kicking ass in terms of users, and much of that is due to the love they’ve gotten from Apple and through PR. But Manoj doesn’t care – he argues that real revenue and partnerships are going to serve Dub better in the long-term. That statement may be suspect, but there’s no doubt that Dub is making headway.
Recently, Dub has created partnerships with DataTel and Moodle. DataTel is the 3rd largest ERP vendor for universities. Together, the two partnerships mean that over 1,000 universities will have access to Dub’s platform as a way of sharing contacts among students and faculty. Furthermore, they’ve announced partnerships with SXSW and Higher Logic, as a way for conference-goers to share information easily.
Dub was founded 19 months ago by a group of engineers who wanted to create a platform for users to share contact information. Their major product, originally available only on iPhone, launched less than 1 year ago. Founder and CEO Manoj Ramnani came to the US pursuing an MBA at George Washington University, and recently sold a mobile software services company.
Mobile business cards is a real problem and I definitely want to see some company – whether it be Dub or Bump – succeed. I’m sick of carrying around wads of paper in my pocket every time I go to an event, and then fumbling through the stack to figure out the e-mail address of that one person I want to talk to. That said, there’s a long way to go before we as a community standardize on one application – and it’ll be interesting to see which one becomes successful.