Pratilipi, an online storytelling platform that enables writers to share their work in various formats, announced it has raised $48 million in a new financing round led by Krafton.
South Korean gaming giant Krafton led the Series D round for the seven-year-old Bengaluru-based startup, bringing its to-date raise to $78.8 million.
Existing investor Omidyar Network India as well as scores of high-profile entrepreneurs including Pratilipi chief executive Ranjeet Pratap Singh as well as Unacademy’s Hemesh Singh and Gaurav Munjal, Locus’ Nishith Rastogi, Meesho’s Vidit Aatrey, Udhyam’s Mekin Maheshwari and NoBroker’s Amit Agarwal also participated in the round.
Pratilipi — which has expanded to book publishing, audio and comics in recent years — uses proprietary algorithms to identify stories that it believes could be turned into a book or a web series and buys the IP from the writers. Over 370,000 writers on the platform today share their work in a dozen languages and more than 30 million readers browse Pratilipi each month to read stories.
“We have been a part of Pratilipi’s growth story since the early stages,” said Pratik Poddar, Principal at Nexus Venture Partners, an early backer of Pratilipi, in a statement. “Over the years, we have witnessed the team’s deep product focus, an obsession to make creators successful, and keen understanding of monetizing content IP which is extensible across different formats.”
Pratilipi’s Singh said the startup will deploy the fresh funding to broaden its partnerships with industry players as well as invest in building in-house publishing stack. With Krafton, the startup aims to develop stories that can be incorporated into global gaming franchises.
The demand for original stories has surged in India in recent years and many streaming services and publishing giants are engaging with Pratilipi, he said. “We will continue to work with ecosystem partners and for formats where we already have in-house expertise we will expand on those,” he said.
Pratilipi also plans to use the fresh funds to expand outside of India. A fraction of its users today already live outside the country, said Singh. “We haven’t worked on the expansion so far, but now the plan is to actively reach out to creators and readers in other markets,” he said.
“It is exciting to see the growth of Indian local IPs in online literature, comics and audio platform in Pratilipi, which is already the largest player in India in multiple categories,” said Sean Hyunil Sohn, Head of Krafton’s India division, in a statement.
“With Pratilipi already having a multilingual platform for online literature, it is poised to become one of the strongest players in emerging markets in the future. Krafton believes in long term potential of local Indian IPs that can be successful not just in India but globally as well across formats including literature, comics and gaming and our investment in Pratilipi is another step in realising that vision.”
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