Video-sharing platform Clip has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a series A round led by Matrix Partners India, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Existing investors Shunwei Capital and India Quotient also participated in the round.
The seven-month-old start-up will use the funds to hire people and improve its technology platform.
Clip did not disclose the size of funding but a person familiar with the matter said it raised $6 million.
Clip allows users to create, edit and share short 60-second video clips on the platform. The app is available in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Urdu, Malayalam, Punjabi and English.
Once a user uploads a video, Clip employs machine-learning algorithms to connect users with others sharing similar content on the platform. The app currently has over 3 million installs on Play Store. It also has a chat feature to enable users to have in-app conversations.
Clip will monetize using video ads it plans to start running by the end of 2018, the company’s co-founder Nav Agrawal said.
“In India there are more than 200 million consumers on the internet who are non-English speakers. Clip’s main target are these vernacular users. But we are targeting the market not only with a social-sharing feature, but also using a video-creation angle. Unlike other vernacular platforms, we are providing tools to create and edit videos within the app itself,” Agrawal added.
“Video consumption post (Reliance) Jio has grown sharply, especially among the non-English speaking audience. This section of internet users is growing the fastest and has thus far been starved of relevant content. Clip plays at the cusp of these macro trends and allows users to create, share and consume bite-sized video content that they can relate to,” Tarun Davda, managing director of Matrix Partners India, said in a statement.
The content segment, which broadly includes video streaming, news aggregation and vernacular social media platforms has seen an increase consumption due to the availability of cheaper data and smartphones in the Indian market.
Mint reported in November that at least three content start-ups including Clip, self-publishing platform Pratilipi (Nasadiya Tech. Pvt. Ltd) and social media platform Sharechat (Mohalla Tech Pvt. Ltd) were in talks with investors to raise fresh funds.
Apart from this, content and news focused start-ups such as InShorts, YourStory, ScoopWhoop, FactorDaily and The Ken received cash from venture investors and others in the past.
Source: Mint