Vernacular self-publishing firm Pratilipi has raised $48 million (Rs 357 crore) in its Series D funding round led by South Korean gaming major KRAFTON Inc.
The company’s existing investor Omidyar Network India also participated in the round. A clutch of reputed startup founders also contributed in this round including Hemesh Singh and Gaurav Munjal (Unacademy), Sahil Barua (Delhivery) and Vidit Aatrey (Meesho) among others.
Pratilipi will primarily use the capital to strengthen its IP acquisition and development across various formats including audio books, podcasts, comics, web series, movies and games etc.
A part of the investment will be utilised for expansion in several overseas markets. With this transaction, Pratilipi is said to have raised nearly $79 million in funding so far.
“At Pratilipi, our vision has always been to democratise storytelling across languages, geographies and formats. Over the last 12-18 months we have seen a lot of progress, expanding into some new formats as well as finding newer ways for our creators to be successful,” Ranjeet Pratap Singh, CEO at Pratilipi, said.
Avendus advised Pratilipi on the transaction.
Bengaluru-based Pratilipi, operated by Nasadiya Teechnologies Pvt Ltd, was founded in 2015 by Singh, Sahradayi Modi, Rahul Ranjan, Sankaranarayanan Devarajan and Prashant Gupta.
It acts as a discovery and reading platform for readers, allowing writers to e-publish their poems, stories and other literary works.
It claims to have over 3.7 lakh writers and 30 million monthly active readers in 12 Indian languages. Over the last 18 months, Pratilipi has launched two new products- Pratilipi FM and Pratilipi Comics and also acquired two companies- IVM Podcast and The Write Order.
“It is exciting to see the growth of Indian local IPs in online literature, comics and audio platform in Pratilipi, which is already the largest player in India in multiple categories,” Sean Hyunil Sohn, head of KRAFTON’s India division, said.
In June 2019, the self-publishing e-platform had raised $15 million in a Series B funding round led by China-based Qiming Venture Partners.
