Self-publishing e-platform Pratilipi, which offers content in vernacular languages, has raised $15 million (Rs 104 crore at current exchange rate) in a Series B funding round led by China-based Qiming Venture Partners.
Existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network India, Shunwei Capital, Contrarian Vriddhi Fund and WEH Ventures also participated in the round.
Pratilipi co-founder Ranjeet Pratap Singh said the startup, owned and run by Nasadiya Technologies Pvt. Ltd, will use the fresh capital to improve its technological infrastructure, including its recommendation and personalisation engines. The company is also aiming to increase the number of writers on its platform, Singh said.
A user of the company’s Android app spends an average 40 minutes browsing content, with the community at large adding over a million comments and exchanging over 2.5 million messages on the platform every month, the co-founder added.
Founded in 2015 by Singh, Sahradayi Modi, Rahul Ranjan, Sankaranarayanan Devarajan and Prashant Gupta, Pratilipi acts like a discovery and reading platform for readers, allowing writers to e-publish their poems, stories and other literary works.
The startup currently offers services in 10 languages – English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Oriya and Kannada.
In February 2018, the platform raised $4.3 million (around Rs 28 crore) in its Series A round, which was led by Omidyar Network. It previously raised about Rs 6.3 crore (around $925,000 then) in its seed round in February 2016, led by Nexus Venture Partners.
