Kerala: Twitter co-founder to invest in startup mentored by state\'s start-up mission

In a first major initiative in Kerala, micro-blogging and social networking service provider Twitter's co-founder on Friday said he would invest in a startup mentored by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM)

Announcing this through video conference of a global meet near here, the Twitter's co-founder and angel investor Biz Stone said he would be investing in the Kochi-based startup Sieve. The occasion was the inaugural ceremony of the second edition of 'Huddle Kerala 2019,' one of Asia's largest congregations on startup ecosystem.

The two-day event, organised by the KSUM in association with Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), is being held at nearby Kovalam.

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 would 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 said he was proud of associating with Nediyara and the company from Kerala.

However, Stone did not disclose the investment amount.

Speaking on the occasion, Nediyara 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 and finance industry in the UK and Otis Elevators company," he said.

Nediyara was selected as one of the Forbes fellows in 2018 and he has bagged the 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 startups in India.