Exclusive: Trell raises $11 Mn Series A round led by KTBN, Samsung at $43 Mn valuation

Lifestyle centric short video app Trell has secured Rs 85.72 crore~$11.43 million in a Series A funding round led by KTBN Ventures and Samsung Ventures.

In July, Entrackr had exclusively reported about Trell’s upcoming funding round led by Samsung and KTBN. In the report, we had mentioned that Surge and Fosun would also participate.  

As per regulatory filings, KTBN Ventures and Samsung Ventures have led the latest round by infusing Rs 37.5 crore and Rs 15 crore respectively, followed by the existing backer, Fosun RZ investing Rs 8.92 crore. While Sequoia Surge put in Rs 7.5 crore, FireBolt Ventures and Sajid Rahman invested Rs 8.75 crore collectively.

Prabhakar MR, WEH Ventures, Ramakant Sharma, Tej Kapoor invested Rs 9.94 lakh, Rs 50 lakh, Rs 5 lakh, and Rs 3.6 lakh respectively, whereas Ankur Nagpal and Lachwani Jagtiani Family Trust also joined the round with Rs 93.7 lakh investment together.

Trell has allotted 87,927 Series A CCPS at an issue price of Rs 9749 per share to raise the above-mentioned amount, shows regulatory filings. The company would utilize these funds for growth and expansion plans. 

According to Fintrackr’s calculations, Trell has reached an estimated valuation of about Rs 323 crore or $43 million (post-money). Its promoter’s holdings have also been diluted from 41.09% to 30.19%.

This is the second round of funding for the company in the past eight months. In December last year, the company had raised $4 million from Sequoia and Fosun at a market cap of Rs 135 crore~$19 million. 

Post the latest allotment, KTBN Ventures has acquired a majority stake of 11.36%, whereas Fosun and Surge command 8.47% and 8.11% stake in the company. LV Angel Fund, FireBolt, and Samsung also own a single-digit stake of 1.83%, 1.39%, and 4.31% respectively.

WEH Ventures and Nagpal have picked up 3.73% collectively. 

Floated by Pulkit Agarwal, Prashant Sachan, Arun Lodhi, and Bimal Kartheek Rebba in 2016, Trell was pivoted from community-based platform to lifestyle centric short video app. It allows users to create 3-5 minute original content videos in their native languages along with sharing their experiences, recommendations, and reviews across various categories such as health, fitness, beauty, travel, among others. 

Soon after the ban of 59 China-linked apps by the Indian government on June 29, the short video segment is attracting decent interest from individual investors and venture capitalists as well. Competitors of Trell such as Mitron TV had raised $2 million fresh money from Nexus in July, and Chingari recently raised $1.3 million at a valuation of about $10 million. 

Other notable apps in the segment include Roposo, MX TakaTak, Sharechat’s Moj, and DailyHunt’s Josh. Among the new players, Moj had crossed 50 million downloads on Google Play Store, last week. While TakaTak has been downloaded over 33 million times, Mitron has close to 23 million downloads. Josh has also raked in 28 million downloads in a quick time while Trell and Chingari’s download numbers are little over 20 million. 

Last week, social media giant Facebook had also entered the space with a short video feature within its main app in India. Currently, the feature can be seen in the news feed, which allows users to watch and create short videos on the platform.