Veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta-led multimedia news platform – The Print has raised Rs 3.49 crore from its existing investor Ratan Tata in an extended seed round. Founded by Gupta, who earlier was associated with 24*7 news channel NDTV and The Indian Express, The Print majorly focuses on news related with politics, government, policy, defence, economy and others.
Since its inception in August 2017, The Print had raised Rs 45 crore from the likes of Tata, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Uday Kotak, Ravi Thakran and Nandan Nilekani amongst others. Earlier, Tata had invested about Rs 1.5 crore in the Delhi-headquartered venture.
The company has on-boarded well-known writers including Manu Pubby, Rama Lakshmi, and Y.P. Rajesh. Beside text-based stories, The Print also presents a special interview-based show “Off the Cuff” on NDTV where celebrity guests hailing from various areas have been invited to discuss the latest topics.
Famous TV anchor and journalist Barkha Dutt had also joined Gupta as co-founder of The Print. However, later she had moved out from the company for some unknown reasons. Before starting The Print, Gupta had floated Mediascape to launch news products for the television, digital, and print.
Over the past three-four years, many veteran journalists have been setting up horizontal digital media platforms to tap into increasing readership on mobile as well as the web. Platforms including Scroll, The News Minute, Quartz, The Quint, Catch News and The Wire have emerged as prominent players.
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Meanwhile, niche-focused media plays such as YourStory, FactorDaily, The Ken (subscription-based), YouthkiAwaaz, IndiaSpend, INC42, Dealstreet and a few others are also drawing significant interest from early-stage investors.
Excited by decent acceptance of subscription-based offerings such as Business Standard and The Ken, country’s largest media group Times of India Group along with a few other traditional media houses are slated to kick-off premium content offering tailored for paid subscribers.
The story was sourced from Paper.VC
