In the last decade, India has seen people scripting successful startup stories in various fields. The media industry was not left untouched by the startup wave that had gripped the country. Both big and small players are grabbing attention of audience and investors alike. We’ve witnessed the rise of many entertainment and media startups in India who pulled it off and made it big.
DailyHunt
DailyHunt is one of India’s leading news and local language content platforms. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Bengaluru, this platform has grown manifolds. In August 2019, they raised $3 Million (Rs 21.75 Crore) in a Series F funding round from Stonebridge Capital.
DailyHunt currents harbours over 1,00,000 news articles in 14 vernacular languages licensed from 800 publication partners daily. They also provide advertisers with a platform and help them target the correct audience.
Lokal
This Bengaluru based startup was founded in 2018, by Vishal Chaudhary and Jani Pasha. Lokal is the newest member to join the club of media startups that provide users local news based on their location and in their local languages. They’ve made this possible by acquiring news through a curated network of journalists and freelancers.
The latest round of funding which Lokal has raised is of $3 million from 3one4 Capital, Y Combinator, RB Investments, SOMA Capital, and its existing investor – India Quotient. The app is targeting 900-million non-English speaking users of India. Currently the app has more than 3 million downloads in 27 districts across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh, and they’re planning on expanding their reach in three other states.
Samosa Labs
The startup with a quirky name, Samosa Labs, is a social media and chat entertainment app. They made headlines when they raised $7 Million in a fresh funding round said to be led by Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi and Sequoia Capital India. The services they provide include user-generated audio and GIFs that can be shared across other social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp.
Samosa Labs has online integration with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger which allows sharing of all bulk videos generated on this platform, and the brands see this concept as an effective way of driving traffic and for digital marketing. In the last 6 months, the platform has seen its daily active users rise from 50,000 to 5,00,000 which is almost 10-fold, post launching video-based content.
ShareChat
A more desi form of Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms, ShareChat allows its users to share and post videos, songs, images and other content, as well as discover content that is trending around them, and they have a current user base of 60 million every month.
ShareChat was founded in 2015 by IIT-Kanpur alumni Bhanu Singh Pratap, Farid Ahsan and Ankush Sachdeva. They made headlines post raising $100 million in Series D type funding in 2019. This media startup looks forward to strengthening the technology infrastructure for its platform as it looks to scale its business further. Currently there are 4 million active monthly users who share 2,00,000 daily posts on ShareChat making it one of the most used social media platforms in India.
BetterButter
BetterButter is a startup which caters to cuisines, food lovers and bloggers. They allow their user to create, discover and share local, regional and international recipes in their very own local languages. Founded in 2015 by Niyaz Laiq and Sukhmani Bedi, the site is now one of the most preferred places to find videos related to cooking a dish in your own regional language. With over 750,000 app downloads and 50,000 recipes already on their app, BreadButter is serving its customers just fine.
The media industry in India requires a strong user base to be successful in the market. In times when the trends are ever changing and strong ideas are the ones which survive the harness of the market, these five digital media startups are paving the path to an innovative future. Find more about startups in the media industry on The Company Check!
