Shark Tank S2 participant STAGE raises ₹40 crore in a Series A round

• Indore-based Indian OTT platform STAGE claims it has over 225,000 paid subscribers across Haryana and Rajasthan.
  
• The startup aims to launch content in top 20 dialects in India, which have a potential to reach over 200 million households.
  
• NB Ventures, Dholakia Ventures, TSM Ventures, WeFounderCircle, Mumbai Angels, Tarmac Ventures, Tailwind Ventures, Longtail Ventures, Lets Ventures and AngelList participated in the funding round.

Dialect based, hyperlocal OTT platform STAGE has raised ₹40 crore in Series A funding led by Blume Ventures with participation from NB Ventures, Dholakia Ventures, TSM Ventures, WeFounderCircle, Mumbai Angels, Tarmac Ventures, Tailwind Ventures, Longtail Ventures, Lets Ventures and AngelList.

Existing investors who participated are Better Capital, IPV, TCA, Venture Catalysts along with some angels. The company, which also participated in Season 2 of the hit reality show Shark Tank India, previously raised ₹31 crore, bringing the total capital raised to ₹71 crore. The total valuation of the company stands at ₹290 crore, as shared with Business Insider India.

The company began with Haryanavi content in 2019, and has over 225,000 subscribers at present. With over 25,000 subscribers added every month, STAGE is growing 30% M-o-M, according to estimates provided by the company.

“We plan to capture 10% of over 25 million households watching video content in Haryana and Rajasthan by mid-2024. STAGE’s vision is to become a platform for entertainment, connection and 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 over 200 million households,” Vinay Singhal, co-founder, STAGE said.

The current web series on STAGE in Haryanvi include Akhada, Group-D, College Kaand, Opri Parai to name a few. STAGE also launched content in Rajasthani dialect in June 2022 which has over 10,000 subscribers at present.

“STAGE’s slogan describes the passion and motivations of the team to build for the immense diversity of language and dialect that India offers. With two dialects launched and dozens more to build, we are excited to be partners on this journey,” Karthik Reddy, co-founder and partner, Blume Ventures said.

The OTT startup was founded in November 2019 by Vinay Singhal, Shashank Vaishnav, and Parveen Singhal - the same team which earlier built the popular content company, WittyFeed. It was the second-largest viral content company in the world, the company claims.

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