Digital TV platform Roposo is raising a new round worth $5 million (Rs 34.68 crore) from Tiger Global. The round looks like the first tranche of Series D round. A board resolution filed with MCA reveals that the firm will be issuing 51,149 Series D1 CCPS share worth Rs 6780 each.
The fresh fund infusion had come after five months of raising $10 million in an extended Series C round from Tiger Global. It also raised $1.7 million from Bertelsmann India in November 2018. While the valuation of the firm couldn’t be ascertained in this round, it was valued at Rs 288 crore in the extended Series C round in December last year.
It’s worth noting that Roposo was valued worth Rs 487 crore in 2016 when it raised $15 million Series B round. There has been almost 40% haircut in valuation from its peak valuation. So far, it raised over $32 million (excluding this round) in total risk capital across five rounds.
Started as a fashion-focused social network, Roposo had gone through two major pivots. Currently, it provides users with a TV-like experience by providing more than 25 channels on the app in genres – comedy, travel, dubbed videos, religion amongst others across 10 languages.
The fresh fund infusion is likely to be deployed to acquire talent, improving product technology, and enlarging user community from the current 25 million.
Financially, the company is slowly but steadily improving its performance. Roposo had recorded 3X growth in revenue (Rs 3.84 crore) in FY18 as compared to Rs 1.29 crore in the preceding fiscal. It also controlled losses by 33.56%, going down from Rs 30.96 crore to Rs 20.57 crore in the FY ending March 2018.
The digital commerce platform ‘Bazaar’ by Roposo also gave the company a greater scope for earning revenue by dabbing into the e-commerce market. However, it’s yet to be reflected in financial statements, maybe with FY19’s financials we would be able to ascertain the impact. We will keep an eye on Bazaar and how the firm evolves with Roposo – TV by the people.
