Delhi-based OTT platform STAGE has raised Rs 40 crore in a funding round led by Blume Ventures and other investors.
Other investors include NB Ventures, Dholakia Ventures, TSM Ventures, WeFounderCircle, Mumbai Angels, Tarmac Ventures, Tailwind Ventures, Longtail Ventures, Lets Venture, and AngelList.
Founded in November 2019 by Vinay Singhal, Shashank Vaishnav, and Parveen Singhal, STAGE is a digital, hyper-localised, professionally-generated content platform that offers trending, entertaining, and informative content in multiple languages and dialects.
The startup plans to use the raised capital to go deeper in Haryana and Rajasthan, create more original content, and grow the product.
“We plan to capture 10% of 25 million+ households watching video content in Haryana and Rajasthan by mid-2024. STAGE’s vision is to become a platform for entertainment, connection & celebration of cultures for all dialect-speaking people in the country. By 2027, we plan to launch in the top 20 dialects of the country, which have a potential to reach 200 million+ households,” said Vinay Singhal.
The platform, which started with Haryanvi content, claims to have 225,000+ subscribers and adds 25k+ subscribers per month, growing 30% M-o-M.
The platform has produced many web series in Haryanvi, including Akhada, Group-D, College Kaand, Opri Parai, etc. On the back of this strong product-market fit and customer love, STAGE launched the Rajasthani dialect in June 2022 and already has 10k+ subscribers.
Speaking on the investment, Karthik Reddy of Blume Ventures, said, “STAGE’s slogan describes the passion and motivation of the team to build for the immense diversity of language and dialect that India offers. Building quality content is the best bet to conserve our dialects and languages and this is STAGE’s mission. With two dialects launched and dozens more to build, we are excited to be partners on this journey.”
Source @Indianstartupnews
