Private Equity

VC Fund Investments

Catamaran leads investment in US-based messaging app Port

INC42  

Numberless Inc, the San Francisco, CA (USA) based parent company of messaging app Port, has raised seed funding in a round led by Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy's investment firm Catamaran Ventures. As part of the transaction, Jennifer O'Brien from Catamaran will join the board of Numberless. Port will use the funding to expand its team and launch a beta version of its app. The public version of the app is expected to go live in November 2023. Port, founded in 2023 by Aniruddh Balasubramanian and Abhinav N, uses “ports” instead of phone numbers to connect users. These ports require consent from both parties to open, which means no unwanted connections will be able to spam the message box. Either party can close the port at any time without leaving behind a phone number for undesired follow-on communication. Port also claims to offer open-source encryption technology to keep messaging content private.