Nasadiya Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates vernacular self-publishing firm Pratilipi, has raised Rs 70.68 crore (approximately $9.4 million at current exchange rates) in its Series C funding round.
The round has been led by Chinese conglomerate Tencent, with participation from firms including Omidyar Network, Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL), Shunwei Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, according to regulatory filings.
The company has issued 4,162 Series C compulsorily convertible preference shares to the investors at a nominal value of Rs 30 and a premium of Rs 1.69 lakh, per the filing. Tencent has subscribed to 3,379 of these CCP shares, while Shunwei has picked up 317.
Omidyar Network has picked up 254 shares for a consideration of Rs 4.31 crore, while Nexus Venture Partners and BCCL have acquired 106 shares each for Rs 1.8 crore. Tencent has also picked up one equity share in Pratilipi at a Rs 10 nominal value and a premium of Rs 1.69 lakh, per the filings.
Bengaluru-based Pratilipi was founded in 2015 by Ranjeet Pratap 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.
Series C funding commitments have come almost a year after the self-publishing e-platform raised $15 million (around Rs 104 crore) in a Series B funding round led by China-based Qiming Venture Partners. Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network India, Shunwei Capital, Contrarian Vriddhi Fund and WEH Ventures also participated in that round.
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.
The startup currently offers services in 12 languages including in English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Oriya and Kannada.
