Stellaris VP leads Rs 5 Cr seed round in vernacular knowledge sharing app Manch

Vernacular knowledge sharing app Manch has raised Rs 5 Cr in its seed round led by Stellaris Venture Partners. One of the few startups in this segment, Manch will use the proceeds for product innovation and acquiring users.

Co-founder of Udaan and former Flipkart executive Sujeet Kumar is also participating in the round, revealed the filing with Registrar of Companies (RoC) accessed by Paper.vc.

Launched in 2018 by Pritam Roy and Hari Sunkari, Manch is essentially a community-driven platform that allows users to discuss, ask questions and express their opinions on topics including politics, personal relationships, and career advice.

With over 10,000 downloads (Google Play Store data), Manch operates in six languages including Hindi, Bengali, and Tamil. It claims to have more than 30,000 monthly active users.

As of now, Manch is available for text and image format and it is planning to launch in audio and video format to gather more users on its platform.

In knowledge sharing and discussion segment, Manch primarily competes with Kalaari Capital and Blume Venture-backed Vokal. With an aim to achieve 100 million MAUs, the Bengaluru-based startup led by Aprameya Radhakrishna has been focusing on voice.

Besides, ShareChat and Helo also share a similar audience to some extent.

On the back of growing smartphones and cheap data, the scope for vernacular startups in India is looking promising. Apart from the aforementioned players, TikTok, Dailyhunt, Kwai, Bigo Live, NewsDog among others have been making the vernacular market more competitive particularly for Chinese investors.