Noida-based News in Shorts, a mobile news curator that aggregates third party news and presents it in 60 words each, has raised $20 million (Rs 127 crore) in Series B round funding from existing investor Tiger Global Management.
ADA News in Shorts Pvt Ltd, which runs News in Shorts, will primarily use the money to expand its team and improve user experience, the company said in a press statement.
“Our vision is to make the consumption of news easy, accessible and essential to every consumer across the spectrum. Our core focus remains enhancing user experience by constantly raising the bar for a better product and this investment will be used primarily for that,†said Azhar Iqubal, co-founder and CEO of the company.
News in Shorts began as a Facebook page two years back, and picked up followers immediately. It was shortlisted for the third batch of Nasscom’s 10,000 Startups programme and then incubated at TLabs, Times Internet Ltd' startup incubator.
In February, News in Shorts raised $4 million (Rs 25 crore) in Series A funding from Tiger Global and Japan's Rebright Partners. Existing angel investors Ankush Nijhawan, Gaurav Bhatnagar, Manish Dhingra and Flipkart Founders Sachin and Binny Bansal also participated in that round.
News in Shorts had secured seed capital in June 2014.
The startup was founded Deepit Purkayastha, an IIT Kharagpur dropout, along with Azhar Iqubal and Anunay Arunav (both IIT Delhi dropouts). The company picks news stories from across categories, edits them and provides the essence of those stories within 60 words each.
Users can also pick news stories from categories such as national, business, sports, technology, entertainment and miscellaneous. They can also read the full coverage by clicking on the link of the source provided at the end of each story, the statement said.
The company claims that its app has crossed the one million downloads mark on the Android platform. News in Shorts is also available on iOS.
