China-based venture capital Qiming Venture Partners has led a Rs 105 crore ($15.2 million) funding in Bengaluru-based self-publishing platform Pratilipi that enables users to read, write and listen to stories in diverse Indian languages, according to media reports.
Other investors who participated in the funding round are its existing backers Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network India, Shunwei Capital, Contrarian Vriddhi Fund and WEH Ventures.
So far, the startup has raised over $20 million in funding.
Established in 2014, Pratilipi (that means ‘you become what you read’ in Sanskrit) deals with original works such as stories, poetry, essays and articles, penned down by both professionals and hobbyists. It claims to have over 800K stories written by about 100K users. Currently, the number of its active monthly readers stands at 5.2 million.
The corpus raised will help Pratilipi spruce up its technology infrastructure, enhance its recommendation and personalisation engines, widen the number of writers and introduce newer forms of storytelling.
Pratilipi counts YourQuote, ShareChat, Helo, and Vmate, among its competitors.
The startup raised its Series A funding worth $4.3 million in February last year, led by Omidyar Network. Before this, it had garnered as much as $1 million in seed funding in 2016 that was led by venture capitalist Nexus Venture Partners and other investors.
Qiming, one of the leading venture capital firms in China, currently manages a portfolio of over $4 billion across 12 funds. IT focuses on investments in sectors such as consumer internet, healthcare, information technology and clean-tech.