Being run on bootstrap for about six years, online news portal for start-ups Yourstory.com has raised its first round of funding.
Founded in 2008 by Shradha Sharma, Yourstory has successfully roped in investors such as Ratan Tata, Vani Kola of Kalaari Capital, TV Mohandas Pai and Qualcomm Ventures.
While the amount was not disclosed, according to sources, the portal has raised about $3 million (₹19.5 crore) in Series A. This investment also marks Ratan Tata’s maiden investment into a news portal while this would be his tenth investment in the growing internet-led businesses over the last two years. His investments include those of Urban Ladder, Cardekho and Bluestone among others.
Announcing about the fundraise in a blog post, Sharma said that portal would be using the funds to launch a mobile-led tech product that will help people to write, talk and view their own stories in native Indian languages. This is being driven by the fact that more people are keen on knowing about the start-up ecosystem and are consuming content on their smartphones.
The investment in the news portal also is a further proof of the growing investor interest in India’s digital landscape that has several niche content-led digital brands with dominant players such as Newscorp-led VCCircle.
In the last few years, several such portals have cropped up. Popular among them are Nextbigwhat, iamwire, Inc42, Techcrunch among others.
Despite any strong monetisation or revenue model, a few of them have been able to attract global investors as well.
In January, NewsHunt, raised $40 million from Falcon Edge Capital, Omidyar Network Advisors, Matrix Partners and Sequoia Capital India in a Series C round. In July, mobile news curator News in Shorts that tells a story in just 60 words raised $20 million from Tiger Global. Last December, another news portal that provides analytical content for tech start-ups, Inc42, raised seed funding from an Indian and a Singapore investor. Indian social content website ScoopWhoop raised about $2 million from Bharti SoftBank.
Vaibhav Agarwal, Founder of Inc42, feels that the investment is a “great sign” for the Indian start-up ecosystem and media companies. While it has taken a while for Indian investors to understand the dynamics of media ventures, investors should not look at media as a direct returns investment but rather more of a vehicle to ride upon and which will give a boost to the ecosystem and indirectly their returns, said market experts.
Correction:
In the report, it was stated that the company charges a fee to feature startups and budding entrepreneurs. Yourstory.com has clarified this is incorrect and that no payment is involved. The line has been removed. The error is regretted.