[Funding alert] Indian language video platform Bolo raises Rs 3 Cr led by Nexus Venture Partners

Bengaluru-based Indian language knowledge sharing community, Bolo, on Monday announced it has raised Rs 3 crore in seed funding led by Nexus Venture Partners with participation from Unacademy Founders Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh; Growth Story Founders Ganesh Krishnan and Srinivas Anumolu; and Newsdog Founder Chen Yukun.

The startup aims to utilise the funding amount to strengthen the team across product, technology, and operations.

Launched in July 2018 by Nishant Chandra and Siddharth Maheshwari, Bolo is a knowledge-sharing community that allows users to ask and answer questions in Hindi. The answers are in the form of short videos of less than one minute each. Additionally, users can directly video call with experts on the platform for a small fee to get highly-personalised solutions to their problems.

Nishant Chandra, Co-founder, Bolo, said,

“We aim to enable knowledge sharing among Indians coming online for the first time in a format they prefer and the language that they’re comfortable with.”

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The app, which is currently available in Hindi language, includes categories such as beauty, fashion, fitness, cooking, and career counselling.

The vernacular platform shared in an official statement that 400 million Indians have come on to the internet over the last four years. More than 75 percent of the total users will be Indian language users by 2021. Apps focussing on utility, entertainment, and news already serve millions of people, and knowledge sharing communities like Bolo are rising rapidly as people start looking for information, the company said.

Pratik Poddar, Nexus Venture Partners, added,

“We continue to be bullish on Indian language consumption story. We saw a shift in the behaviour pattern that people were searching on YouTube for information as some would on Google, and now looking for information in video format which is trustworthy and easy to consume - but there is a lack of supply of structured content and discoverability is a problem. When Nishant and Siddharth explained they were ideating along these lines, we knew we had to be a part of the story.”

In May, Mumbai-based original video content startup The Viral Fever (TVF) received $5 million (Rs 34.6 crore) in funding from Tiger Global Management, through its Internet Fund III, according to RoC filings accessed by YourStory.

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