Clip App secures $1 mn round from India Quotient and Chinese Investor

Bengaluru-based digital media video startup, Clip App has raised  $1 million in a seed round from India Quotient and China-based investment firm Shunwei Capital. According to a report in ET, the funds will be used towards enhancing the product’s features for the video only app.

The app lets users to create selfie videos and apply popular themes, stickers and filters. Clip App claims to have seen an organic growth of over 100,000 users within three months, largely from smaller towns.

The app specifically caters to tier-II and III users, who would not relate to the English video content seen on Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, and focuses on Hindi speaking users. Besides Hindi, it’s also available in Gujarati and Marathi.

“Users spend over 20 minutes a day on the app. And a lot of videos that are currently on the app are the kind of videos one would find shared on WhatsApp or videos individuals take randomly, could be dance, drama, stunts.Basically, one time watch videos. These users technically represent 95% of India,” said Nav Agarwal, co-founder, Clip App.

Clip App sensed huge opportunity in video when it observed that over 80% of Facebook’s newsfeeds consisted of videos while Snapchat and Instagram are also moving towards video. However, non-English speaking population don’t understand and engage with English centered content.

Subsequently, users would not be as comfortable sharing video content on these platforms, so the company decided to create an alternative for them. “We see the future in video and targeting a vernacular audience,” added Nav.

“Lot of social media companies have started and shut down in India, it’s not a space where companies see a high success ratio. Besides this, investors are also interested in seeing innovative social media companies come out of India for Indians, so there is potential in terms of funding for this space,” said Anand Lunia of India Quotient.