Online content network firm Instamedia Network has raised $4 million in strategic funding from Times Internet Limited, a subsidiary of The Times of India Group.
Shimla-based firm Instamedia will use the funds to grow its network of writers and accelerate its technology platform development. It also plans to launch local sites, targeting the European and US audiences, which already today drive over 60% of the traffic.
Satyan Gajwani, Director of Business Development, for the Times of India Group has joined InstaMedia’s board of directors.
Transaction Reference: TOI
Started four years ago, InstaMedia has previously raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Indiagames CEO Vishal Gondal in 2008, and received support from The Morpheus.
An on-demand content provider for a slew of internet sites, InstaMedia includes content verticals like Luxury (BornRich.org), Green Living (Green Diary, EcoFriend), Gadgets (GizmoWatch, BornTechie, CellphoneBeat, Techfemina), Smart Homes (Hometone, Homeqn), Design (The Design Blog),Autos (AutoMotto), Fashion (StyleGuru), Entertainment (CelebGuru).
Its 15 network sites run some of the fastest growing Internet sites in verticals such as lifestyle, green living and technology. In addition, its popular citizen journalism platform Instablogs has over 4 million monthly unique visitors.
Its in-house software as a service (SaaS) based content platform Instapress, which drives accountable and measured return on its content without compromising quality, has been one of the key drivers of its growth. Currently, it powers the back end for Instablogs, and two websites from UTV – Bindass.com and UTV Action. Instapress implements efficient workflows to streamline collaboration between various content contributors, with objective measurement tools to track effectiveness.
Instamedia is also launching its fully hosted content solution called Instapress Content Server (ICS), which will allow other media networks to use the technology to drive greater RoI and performance from existing content production teams.
It plans to revamp and ramp up its content model – it will move to a mostly freelance based model, with its in-house content team of around 40 managing the freelancers. This will help it ramp up its content output, which is currently at around 5000-6000 articles per month because of the higher CPM (Cost Per Milli/thousand impressions) rate that advertisers pay for those verticals.
For monetization, InstaMedia uses direct sales, Google Adsense, premium ad networks and blind ad networks, with its niche verticals accounting for much of its revenues.
It has recently opened its second office in Noida, a suburb of New Delhi, as they scale up operations.
Tags
Instamedia Network ,
Times Internet Limited ,
The Times of India Group ,
Satyan Gajwani ,
Indiagames ,
Instablogs ,
Vishal Gondal ,
Google Adsense ,
UTV ,
content platform ,
Technology ,
strategic funding ,
software as a service ,
KVEZAR VIEW
| Date | Transaction | Type | Buyer | Size ($mn) |
| 09/09/10 |
Citizen Media(Instamedia Network) - Times Internet |
Venture Capital |
Times Internet Limited |
4.00 |
| 01/01/10 |
Citizen Media - Sequoia Capital |
Private Equity |
Sequoia Capital India |
3.65 |
| Date | Type | Buyer | Target | Size ($mn) | State |
| 08/02/12 |
Venture Capital |
Indian Angel Network |
Gamiana Digital Entertainment Private Limited |
1.00 |
Completed |
| 06/02/12 |
M&A |
Agni Property Services Private Limited |
Looking For |
- |
Planned |
| 02/02/12 |
M&A |
Persistent Systems Limited |
Location business |
- |
Completed |
| 31/01/12 |
Private Equity |
Tiger Global Management LLC |
Flipkart Online Services Private Limited |
150.00 |
Completed |
Company |
| Name | Promoters | Office | Competitor | Website |
| Times Internet Limited |
Bennett, Coleman and Company Limited |
10, Daryaganj |
Rediff.com India Limited |
www.indiatimes.com |
| Citizen Media Private Limited |
Anil KR Maheshwari & Family |
302, Gupta Arcade LSC Sreshtha Vihar. |
|
www.instablogs.com |
