21 May 2019, India:
Hyperlocal news platform PublicVibe has raised undisclosed amount of investment in fresh funding round.
The round led by Indian Angel Network (IAN) is a co-investment with Anthill Ventures, an investment and speed scaling platform for startups and Hyderabad Angels.
IAN investors Bikky Khosla (Board of Director) and Prashant Pahade (lead investor) led the funding round and also joined the company board.
Narasimha Reddy, Co-founder – PublicVibe, said, “Presently, there are over 70,000 national and regional news publishers in India and yet only 2-3% of local news and 0.05% of instant local news is being covered of the total volume. But people are as much interested—perhaps even more so—in knowing about what’s happening around them in their immediate locality than on a global arena.”
Narasimha Reddy added, “The Indian vernacular readership, which is already a huge consumer base, is growing. It will comprise 9 out of 10 news readers by 2021, as per a Google report. Thus, our mission as a hyperlocal news platform is to serve this massive readership with instant and verified news content in local languages. We are grateful for the encouragement we have received from IAN investors . Their support will help us scale our operations and accomplish our mission.”
Bikky Khosla, Lead Investor at IAN said, “The Indian digital media market is extremely lucrative. It is heartening to see technology players coming up to cater to the immense and diverse consumer base in the country. On account of only a few digital media houses currently serving vernacular content to the relevant demographic, there is a lot of scope for up-and-coming entrepreneurs to grow in this space. Given the commitment of team PublicVibe towards its venture, we are confident in the merit of our investment and wish them all the best.”
Sailesh Sigatapu, Partner at Anthill Ventures said, “India is now the largest data consumer in the world and more than half of these users depend on their smartphones for daily dose of news and entertainment, however the content is limited. As Anthill’s fund will help Public Vibe to enhance their product line and scale with speed, we are excited to see how it will address industry challenges and emerge as a game-changer in this high-potential market space.”
Ram Chaitanya Reddy, Chairman of Hyderabad Angels, said, “Being in Hyderabad, we would like to Identify, Invest and support local companies from this city. Public vibe a startup from Hyderabad, a hyperlocal community news platform, is doing a commendable job by collaborating with people and local governments for instant local news. This is more relevant than global news at times. It touches and impact daily activities by brining resolution to local problems quickly.”
PublicVibe was founded by Narasimha Reddy Veeramreddy, Bhaskar Konda and Sridhar Bandlamudi.
(Image – PublicVibe)