Rigi, a SaaS platform for content creators, has raised ₹100 crore in a funding round led by Elevation Capital, along with participation from Accel, Stellaris, Sequoia.
Angel investors such as Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Kunal Shah (Cred), Amit Kumar Agarwal (NoBroker), Chakradhar Gade (Country Delight), Sharan Hegde (@financewithsharan) also participated in the round. With the closing of this round, Rigi has raised around $25 million across 3 rounds in 14 months since inception.
Founded in 2021 by Swapnil Saurav and Ananya Singhal, Rigi focuses on ‘knowledge creators’ in areas such as education, fitness, gaming, etc. and provides them with an end-to-end ecosystem to manage their communities with a focus on monetisation. The company has built tools such as subscription management, courses, live workshops, paid 1-to-1 interaction and integration with social platforms.
Swapnil Saurav, co-founder of Rigi said, “The increasing use of social media and the growing consumption of online content have led to the emergence of “knowledge creators” in various fields, including education, health and fitness, skills training, and gaming. These creators are sought out by users for specialised advice on these topics. As a natural progression of this trend, users are now willing to pay these creators for personalised advice rather than relying on a generic, one-size-fits-all approach. Our goal is to support these creators in this aspect of their journey, so they can focus on what they do best: adding value to their audiences’ lives.”
Mayank Khanduja, Partner at Elevation Capital said, “At Elevation, we have been firm believers of the growth potential of the creator economy as demonstrated by our past investments in companies such as Sharechat, Turnip and Headfone. Rigi team’s customer obsession and rapid iteration have led them to an extremely strong product market fit among creators in the knowledge economy. In just under 2 years of their existence, Rigi has enabled thousands of creators to become entrepreneurs—a testament to the unparalleled customer love they have received. Therefore, we see the potential for Rigi to emerge as a global leader in this space built out of India, and we are super excited to partner with them in the next phase of their journey.”
Ananya and Swapnil, both batchmates from BITS Pilani, had previously founded HalaPlay, which was acquired by Nazara Technologies in 2020.
While working with social media influencers at HalaPlay, they recognised the growing presence of online creators and the potential of influencers’ communities and they decided to focus on assisting these influencers in engaging and monetising their audiences more effectively.
Since its inception in October 2021, Rigi has helped more than 10,000 creators across over 30 different categories.
Recently, Rigi also started its platform in Indonesia and plans to use the funds raised to expand into newer categories as well as into other geographies.