 "After investment in Snapdeal, Bharti Softbank buys 36% in media startup ScoopWhoop")
Bharti Softbank (BSB), a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and SoftBank Corp, has acquired equity stake in entertainment media start-up ScoopWhoop Media, which creates and curates content that’s usually shared on social media. The deal is the latest in a series of investments by Japanese telecom giant Softbank, which recently said it intends to invest about $10 billion in India over the next few years.
Just last week, SoftBank led a $210 million investment in Ola Cabs and pumped in another $627 million into e-commerge giant Snapdeal. Its other India investments include ad start-up in Mobi and Bharti.
BSB currently runs the Hike instant messaging platform and will now own 36.5 percent in ScoopWhoop. A few months ago it had also boughtan undisclosed stake in location-based service Hoppr.
Commenting on the partnership, Madhu Nori, CEO, BSB Portal Limited, said, “About half of India’s population are under 25 years old and the use of social networks with smartphones is growing rapidly among this segment. As a result, media consumption patterns are rapidly evolving and this space is ready for disruption.”
BSB, in a statement, said, that the partnership will combine the strengths of both content creation and mobile-optimized technology platform and distribution. So while ScoopWhoop will produce the content, Bharti will distribute this over itsmobile-optimized technology platform to Indian consumers.Scoopwhoop currently claims to have around eight million unique and 20 million page views, of which 50 percent is from smartphones.
In BSB we found the perfect partner who believes in our vision and back us both financially and strategically," Sattvik Mishra, co-founder and CEO, ScoopWhoop.
ScoopWhoop was founded by Mishra a year ago. Prior to that, Mishra had been working in Webchutney for close to five years.
Quartz on Saturday had reported Scoopwhoop has raised an initial investment round of Rs10 crore from Bharti Softbank (BSB), which has taken a 25% equity stake in the company. The deal, the report said,gives the 15-month-old website an enterprise valuation of Rs40 crore at this stage.
India is the world’s second largest mobile market with over 900 million subscribers. A vast youth population and a fast growing economy are expected to drive data usage on mobiles with the proliferation of 3G and 4G services and increasing smartphone penetration.
According to the GSMA, India will become the second largest mobile broadband market globally within the next four years with 367 million mobile broadband connections by 2016.
“We are really happy with what we have achieved in the last one year since we started ScoopWhoop in August 2013, but we also know that we have a long road ahead,” ScoopWhoop co-founder and CEO Sattvik Mishra said.
Disclosure: Network 18, which publishes Firstpost and Firstbiz, is now part of the Reliance Group
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