Mobile startup Aloqa has raised $1.5 million in a first round of funding from Wellington Partners and several angel investors. Concurrent with the funding, the two-year old startup is bringing in Sanjeev Agrawal, the former global head of Google (NSDQ: GOOG) product marketing who later went on to work at TellMe Networks, as its CEO. Aloqa’s service notifies users of special offers, events, and Facebook friends near to them. Its recommendations are based on preferences the user sets up. The service is available in beta on Android now and Aloqa says it’s coming by the end of the year to most major mobile platforms. It will be competing with other companies trying to crack the location-aware mobile market, including Google, Loopt, and Whrrl. Release.