Regional language-focused e-storytelling startup Kahaniya bags seed funding

Hyderabad-based Kahaniya.com, an online storytelling platform in regional languages, has raised $200,000 in a seed funding round from a bunch of undisclosed US-based NRI's (non-resident Indians).

The startup, which is evaluating the business-to-business segment as a potential revenue channel, will use the proceeds to add more languages to its platform.

“We realised that there is a huge vacuum in the availability of regional language content in categories like literature, education, and in marketing and branding communication. The regional content on the web is dominated by films, news, and music,” said Pallav Bajjuri, co-founder of Kahaniya, reported VCCircle.

Launched in May 2016 by Bajjuri, Devendar Gona, Jeswanth Padooru and Sandeep Ponagandla, kahaniya allows a user to publish and monetise content in regional languages. Prospective publishers can monetise their content by charging for a book, single chapters, or a series, and can develop it further based on the response received.

The founders earlier operated India’s first social journalism platform Saddahaq, a platform for social dialogue and community development.

Apart from English, this platform currently supports writing in 10 regional languages which include Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Guajarati, Odiya, and Punjabi.

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Kahaniya has some of the best writers from across generations in the Telugu genre. Modern writers like Sri Ramana and Khadir Babu are a part of Kahaniya, taking further the legacy of regional storytelling.

Kahaniya has developed a micropayment system wherein authors can independently define the price of their stories. However, such price must be within the range defined by Kahaniaya – anywhere between 1 and 5 Kahaniya Coins (Each coin is worth Re 1, for users in India and $0.1, for users outside India). So, if a writer wishes to charge for his/ her writings they can charge anywhere between 1 to 5 Kahaniya coins.

Users can publish both freshly produced content or older ones as well. The platform so far has 30,000 pieces of content and onboarded 800 Telugu writers, out of which almost 70 have collectively generated Rs 2.2 lakh in revenue.

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