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What makes this <keyword id="2494939" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="azhar-iqubal">Azhar Iqubal</keyword> unique? Well, it’s his honesty to his business. Founded four years back by three musketeers of the Indian Institute of Technology Azhar <keyword id="4899647" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="iqubal">Iqubal</keyword> (Delhi), Anunay Arunav (Delhi) and <keyword id="3252339" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="deepit-purkayastha">Deepit Purkayastha</keyword> (Kharagpur), Inshorts has sorted out the revenue model for itself. Four years since its inception, news aggregation start up <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=inshorts">Inshorts</a> has been christened as the country's highest rated news <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=apps">app</a> , awarded the 'Best Innovation App' by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) at the 6 th India Digital Awards while its founders bagged mentions at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=forbes">Forbes</a> India's '30 under 30 list of young achievers' and Fortune Magazine's coveted list of 40 under 40. The news aggregation app has about 8 million subscribers from a paltry 100,000 subscribers in December 2014. Till last year, the co-founders were not looking at monetization or actively working on revenue stream for a year. Things have changed now. According to Iqubal, “Inshorts has emerged as a go-to-platform for brands focusing on millennial marketing. Brands Across verticals are including in brand activation targeting millennials. Some of the major brands being - <keyword id="28251" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Dell">Dell</keyword>, <keyword id="215177" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vivo">Vivo</keyword>, <keyword id="1731609" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Oppo">Oppo</keyword>, One Plus 5, <keyword id="13722" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Lenovo">Lenovo</keyword> , <keyword id="43777" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Renault">Renault</keyword> , <keyword id="103029" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Maruti-Swift">Maruti Swift</keyword> , Kotak Mahindra, Polaroid etc.” Most users of Inshorts use smartphones priced over Rs 10,000, which make them good target for brands How will the money flow in? Inshorts has already partnered with a few top notch brands and branded content is what driving their coffers. The mantra of news in 60-words has appealed to the fan base whose morning routine now includes reading at least 10 news stories a day. This in return gives Inshorts a superb engagement on app. And that’s how Iqubal wants to thrive his business on. In an age of advertising as storytelling, it starts with deciding what stories to tell that are worthy of an audience’s time. Competition The news market is still emerging. While Iqubal admits of apps like Daily Hunt and UC News being direct competitor, he believes, what Inshorts does is unique in terms of shortening the news and feeding more content to a single user. Out of 200 stories uploaded every day, an user reads at least 20 stories all over the day. And with billions of page views (counted as one swipe per 60 –word story) every month, Inshorts has achieved a feat in the crowded market. Future Inshorts had raised $24 million from two rounds of fund raising, both led by Tiger Global. Now after offering English and Hindi, Inshorts wants to go <keyword id="6355055" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="USA">USA</keyword> or Singapore, which is again a matter of time.

This media start up has sorted out profitability from crisp content. Here's how

“We take APPbert <keyword id="77977" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Einstein">Einstein</keyword> very seriously. *stern face*”, that’s what news content start up <keyword id="2976225" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Inshorts">Inshorts</keyword> tweeted to explain some serious bugs about some apps. Well, if that wasn’t self explanatory enough, Veet taking the laughter game to another level should. The day Obama defeated <keyword id="6434613" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bush">Bush</keyword> in the US presidential election in 2008, the hair removal <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Indian-start-ups-now-hiring-for-non-technical-roles/articleshow/50073782.cms">brand </a>published a punchy advertisement saying “Goodbye Bush’. Believe it or not, humour is going to take you a long way. That’s the trend to follow. Gone are the days when you took a full page in a leading newspaper and published an advertisement. In the digital age, the consumers have migrated to visually driven social media like Facebook, Twitter, <keyword id="819905" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Instagram">Instagram</keyword>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Indian-start-ups-now-hiring-for-non-technical-roles/articleshow/50073782.cms">Tumblr </a>and Snapchat. While this is true that the attention span has gone down, but there are so many ways of engrossing the consumer today. 
 
Marketers have taken recourse in humour. Even <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Indian-start-ups-now-hiring-for-non-technical-roles/articleshow/50073782.cms">Old Spice</a>, much famed for the vintage men’s grooming products are adding fresh laughter to their campaigns. They are simply going over the top to appeal to the millennial instead of our dads. 
 At Cannes, <keyword id="33542" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Burger-King">Burger King</keyword> had won Grand Prix for Media because unlike many others they had the audacity to introduce <keyword id="3021214" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="McWhopper">McWhopper</keyword> and write an open letter to rival <keyword id="14775" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="McDonalds">McDonalds</keyword> mentioning about the combination of big Mac and Whopper. 
 
With images and videos grabbing eyeballs on social media like nothing else, there are still a lot of experiments to be done. <keyword id="2494939" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Azhar-Iqubal">Azhar Iqubal</keyword>, CEO and co-founder, Inshorts was quick to comment, “…we try to keep things punny. Right from our name to even our app updates, we try to sprinkle a tad bit of punnery in our communication with our users … we also make sure to not take it overboard.” 
 
One thing to keep in mind, never interpret sense of humours as bloopers or just puns. It’s also your own gut to laugh at yourself. Sense of humour isn’t just laughing hard, it’s also smiling to yourself silently. Think of Paperboat. The kind of campaigns they create has nothing to do with the juices they produce. Still those nostalgia laden train journeys, rainy evenings, and sunny winter afternoons would surely make you smile. 
 
"The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Indian-start-ups-now-hiring-for-non-technical-roles/articleshow/50073782.cms">element of humour</a> has always been a key ingredient for any brand as it transcends the target group, age and gender divide,” said <keyword id="3648158" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="pawan-hora">Pawan Hora</keyword>, of a leading media consultancy firm. “It was not utilised to its core in the yesteryears with an exception being the 'Roshni deta bajaj' or 'ECE bulb jingle' but in today's scenario every brand, especially the start ups have realised its true potential and are using it as very potent tools to reach out to the end audience. It also has to do with the fact that today's generation uses a lot more humour in their daily lingo and a casual chit chat or a colloquial terminology has more chances of creating ripples in the mind set of an average consumer.” 
 
Also, amidst the clutter of so many brands, if played well, humour can make you stand out. A brilliant <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Indian-start-ups-now-hiring-for-non-technical-roles/articleshow/50073782.cms">case study</a> could be <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>. They created a lot of media buzz a few years back with getting kids to act as adults, exhibiting various story boards of human life and weaving the element of e-commerce in it that tickle the funny bone for almost anyone who saw these advertisements. 
 It registered well with the audience and got the creative agencies a lot of appreciation as well. Now, when the company is going through tough times viz-a-viz heightened competition from players like <keyword id="18635" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amazon">Amazon</keyword> and a depleting loyalty base, they have again gone back to the tried and tested formula of humour with a few different story boards and kids acting as adults. The rise of web based content platforms like TVF and <keyword id="1875393" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="AIB">AIB</keyword> and the kind of brand associations they draw also bear testimony to the fact. “Humour was, is and will be the best way to have that much needed recall value,” infers Hora.

​ How sense of humour is important to brand your start up?

In barely three years of its existence, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=inshorts">Inshorts</a> has been christened as the country’s highest rated news <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=apps">app</a>, awarded the ‘Best Innovation App’ by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) at the 6th India Digital Awards while its founders bagged mentions at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=forbes">Forbes</a> India’s ‘30 under 30 list of young achievers’ and Fortune Magazine’s coveted list of 40 under 40. 
There’s more. 
 
Today, their app also has about 3 million subscribers from a paltry 100,000 subscribers in December 2014. 
 
One would assume that the three founders- all IIT dropouts would have accepted that they had finally arrived. 
 But, one chat with <keyword id="3252339" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Deepit-Purkayastha">Deepit Purkayastha</keyword>, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at <keyword id="2976225" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Inshorts">Inshorts</keyword> and you know that’s far from the truth. 
 For him and his two co-founders (<keyword id="2494939" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Azhar-Iqubal">Azhar Iqubal</keyword>, <keyword id="2940800" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Anunay-Pandey">Anunay Pandey</keyword>) the journey has just begun. 
 
At the onset, he seems determined to clear one obvious and over-asked question- Is Inshorts finally planning to focus on monetization? 
 
Purkayastha is quick to respond. “Unlike what has been reported, our team has no plans of monetization atleast for this year. Infact, we are not even actively working on a revenue stream right now,” he adds. 
 
 
What they are doing instead is approaching companies for content partnerships. “We are not charging these companies for the partnership. They give us the information and we go about condensing it into 60-word summaries. Based on our insight, we’re deciding which companies to approach and what information to ask from them.” 
 
When I prod him more regarding the lack of a business model or a revenue stream, he admits that it is not as much a priority for them. “See, we’re obviously working on a business model and figuring out which revenue stream works best for us from the two-three options at hand, but that is not something we’re obsessed or worrying our heads off. The way we see it, if people are spending time with our product, engaging on it- then monetizing it should not be one of the big challenges. It’s okay if we take our own sweet time to work around that,” he tells me. 
 
To ensure more and more people engage with their app, the team is pulling no stops. They recently launched their Hindi version, which targets the same demographic- i.e., people between the age of 18-45 years, but those who are more comfortable reading in Hindi. The reception has been encouraging to say the least with the Hindi version getting over 2 million screenviews. 
 
Another way they’ve ensured their product keeps evolving is by shying away from senior-level hires and instead hiring young people. 
According to Purkayastha, Inshorts looks for youngsters ‘whose capabilities are much more than what is expected out of them.’ 
 
This is also the reason why their Head of Technology is a 20-year old who joined Inshorts right after he completed his 12th. 
 
The conversation then naturally progresses to the rounds of funding received by Inshorts and all the eminent investors backing it. When asked about how the funds of their last round have been spent, Purkayastha says that the two main areas they’ve been spent on are Innovation, building the correct team and on the intelligence around the curation process, adding that ‘majority of the last funding is still in the bank.’ 
 
He then proceeds to explain how he doesn’t want Inshorts to be viewed as a news content app. “We wouldn’t call the three of us news junkies. However, all three of us are very obsessed with the way content is packaged and information is presented to the general public to digest. We feel there is a huge gap in that area- with regards to innovation and that is where we believe Inshorts steps in. Wikipedia is the single innovation in how content is packaged. Inshorts aims to be its successor,”he claims. 
 
Unable to help myself, I ask whether in the near future Inshorts would entertain the idea of people paying for the app and his reply comes even before I finish my question. 
 
“Inshorts is always going to be a free app,”

EXCLUSIVE: “Inshorts is not looking at monetization or actively working on revenue stream for a year,” says co-founder Deepit Purkayastha

'<keyword id="20653768" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="chefling" source="keywords">Chefling</keyword>', a unique do-it-yourself (DIY) kit that includes all the ingredients needed to make a tasty global recipe, has sealed a deal of Rs 40 lakh with four sharks on the business reality show '<keyword id="19913228" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shark-tank-india" source="keywords">Shark Tank India</keyword>' season 3. Hailing from Mumbai, the 25-year-old <keyword id="20649763" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="rounit-gambhir" source="keywords">Rounit Gambhir</keyword>, founder of Chefling, introduced this innovative concept of, aiming to streamline the preparation of exotic cuisines. Seizing the opportunity during the lockdown, this young entrepreneur launched his product in Mumbai. Chefling seeks to offer individuals a personalised, cutting-edge gourmet experience that is not only enjoyable and delicious but also affordable. Rounit's vision is rooted in the desire to simplify the process of cooking fancy dishes for enthusiasts with time constraints. The types of DIY kits available are -- Japanese: Sushi and Mochi; Mexican: Enchilada and Taco; and Italian: Lasagna. Talking about his brand, Rounit said: "The company was started in August 2020, and we have sold more than 5,000 kits pan India till date. The kits are available on our own website." "The Indian DIY meal kit market size by the year 2025 will reach around Rs 8,000 crore, and we want the global cuisines to reach every household in India, and Indian cuisines to reach worldwide, so that their experience is economical, easy and sustainable," shared Rounit. He then made a pitch of Rs 40 lakh for 10 per cent equity. Anupam Mittal, the founder and CEO of Shaadi.com said: "Sushi was very good. Thank you for feeding us. The young pitcher further talked about his entrepreneurial journey. Fueled by the determination to rise above his father's company losses and bankruptcy, Rounit harnessed this setback as an opportunity in a market where culinary experimentation is a universal desire. Chefling emerged as the answer to the complexities faced by aspiring home chefs, making it a culinary haven that eliminates hassles and brings the joy of cooking straight to our homes. The compelling pitch and unique brand captured the attention of shark Namita Thapar, the executive director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals Ltd, who took on the challenge of crafting the perfect sushi roll on 'Shark Tank India 3'. And with that, 'Chefling' secured a deal with sharks Namita Thapar, Azhar Iqubal (Co-founder and CEO of Inshorts), Amit Jain (CEO and Co-founder of CarDekho Group), and <keyword id="20313422" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="peyush-bansal" source="keywords">Peyush Bansal</keyword> (Co-founder and CEO of Lenskart), at Rs 40 lakh for 16 per cent equity. Speaking about the experience on the show, Rounit shared: "Over the past three years, belief in connecting our unique idea with the right audience fueled our journey through highs and lows. This belief sustained us through challenges, leading to a pivotal moment when Shark Tank India expressed interest in featuring Chefling." 'Shark Tank India 3' is streaming on Sony LIV. SEE ALSO:<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/google-pixel-8-pro-review/articleshow/107726935.cms" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/google-pixel-8-pro-review/articleshow/107726935.cms" target="_blank">Pixel 8 Pro review: ‘Okay Google’ – The flagship smartphone ticks almost all boxes</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/poco-oneplus-top-indian-smartphone-shipment-growth-but-overall-reading-flat/articleshow/107681294.cms" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/poco-oneplus-top-indian-smartphone-shipment-growth-but-overall-reading-flat/articleshow/107681294.cms" target="_blank">Poco, OnePlus top Indian smartphone shipment growth but overall reading flat</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/ola-electric-cuts-prices-of-scooters-to-compete-with-ice-two-wheelers/articleshow/107816897.cms" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/ola-electric-cuts-prices-of-scooters-to-compete-with-ice-two-wheelers/articleshow/107816897.cms" target="_blank">Ola Electric cuts prices of scooters to compete with ICE two-wheelers</a>

A DIY cooking kit maker Chefling raises ₹40 lakhs from four 'sharks'

Short news aggregator Inshorts on Thursday said it has secured $60 million in funding from <keyword id="2603376" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vy-Capital">Vy Capital</keyword> with participation from existing investors. Inshorts, which also operates location-based social media platform Public, has raised $140 million in the last one year from investors including Addition, <keyword id="526777" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tiger-Global">Tiger Global</keyword>, <keyword id="857014" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="SIG">SIG</keyword>, A91 and <keyword id="7316344" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tanglin-Venture-Partners">Tanglin Venture Partners</keyword>. "The world is changing every minute, and each one of us has an inherent desire to remain updated about these changes. Both <keyword id="11645814" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="inshorts-app">Inshorts App</keyword> and Public App are aimed to help some of these people in their quest of keeping themselves informed," said Azhar Iqubal, Co-Founder and CEO. Inshorts has more than 10 million users on its platform. The app curates the most significant news items of the day, across categories like national, world, politics, business, sports, technology and entertainment, in just 60 words. Inshorts said it has more than 3 billion page views per month. "We are excited to partner with Azhar and team in their journey to build one of the largest content platforms out of India, running two market leading properties with a rapidly growing user base," said Vamsi Duvvuri, Partner, Vy Capital. The company launched Public app two years ago. The app has over 50 million active users and sees one million videos being created every month. It is available in all major languages including Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, <keyword id="62349" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Odia">Odia</keyword>, Assamese, Gujarati and Marathi. Public has amassed a large user base in the Tier 2, Tier 3 cities. Public earlier raised Rs 260 crore in funding led by Addition, along with SIG and Tanglin Venture Partners. It is a social network for hyper-local updates and happenings to hyper-local commerce, jobs, classifieds and more. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/windows-365-operating-system-can-be-accessed-from-an-android-device-mac-ipad-or-even-linux/articleshow/84436022.cms">Windows 365 lets you use the Windows operating system from any device, anywhere</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/twitter-says-goodbye-to-fleets-within-months-of-its-rollout/articleshow/84435334.cms">Twitter says goodbye to Fleets within months of its rollout</a>

News aggregation app Inshorts raises $60 million from Vy Capital and existing investors

New Delhi, July 1 (IANS) The ban on 59 Chinese apps has given homegrown app developers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create world-class products across chat, short videos, and photo/video sharing segments and led by ShareChat, desi apps are now scouting for fresh finds to invest intelligently into scaling their platforms and handle the upcoming rush. In a country where nearly 300 million people are on Facebook, another 400 million on WhatsApp and over 120 million on Chinese app TikTok -- not to forget the millions who are hooked to Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat -- there has not been a single social media platform to date with its roots in India that has created headlines globally. The time is ripe to rise to the occasion and show that Indian programmers can build top-notch social media apps right here, without going to the US or other countries. The regional language social media platform ShareChat is changing the way in which the next billion users will interact on the internet. With over 1 billion monthly Whatsapp shares, users spend more than 25 minutes daily on the platform. ShareChat has a user base of over 60 million monthly active users spread across the country and available in 15 languages including Hindi, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Odia, Kannada, Assamese, Haryanvi, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri and Urdu. The Bengaluru-based regional language social platform has become so popular that even Twitter came onboard when the four-year-old company raised $100 million in its Series D round of funding last year. "ShareChat is silently leading a social media revolution with a strong focus on regional outreach keeping its Bharat connect pristine," said Berges Y Malu, Director, Public Policy, ShareChat. "We welcome the move from the government against platforms that have had serious privacy, cyber security and national security risks. We expect the government to continue their support for the Indian startup ecosystem," Malu added in a statement. Public is a video-only social platform and has already registered 50 million users, with more than one million videos being created every month. According to Azhar Iqubal, Founder and CEO of Public, we have immense talent and resources in India and the vacuum created by this ban is a great opportunity for Indian app makers to launch products that have the potential to do well globally. "It will also make users more vigilant in checking what permissions they have given to apps as smartphones store sensitive information," said Iqubal. Public is currently available in five Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil and Telugu, and aims to have over 100 million users by the end of the year. Roposo is another leading homegrown short-video making app with more than 65 million downloads in the country. TikTok users, including influencers with huge fan followings, have started switching to Roposo in large numbers after the ban. "We have built Roposo as a clean and ethical platform. The unique idea of channels in Roposo provides every talented Indian with an opportunity to grow rapidly," said Mayank Bhangadia, co-founder of Roposo. Indians have rushed to download social app Chingari, a desi alternative to Chinese TikTok, which is witnessing nearly 1 lakh downloads and over 2 million views per hour since the government banned 59 Chinese apps over national security concerns. Already downloaded over 3 million times, the app which was founded by Bengaluru-based programmers Biswatma Nayak and Siddharth Gautam last year, was trending at the top spot on Google Play Store. "As Chingari is setting new benchmarks, a lot of investors are showing interest in our app. We are holding crucial discussions to get a good investor(s) on board so as to scale up our free-of-cost social platform," informed Nayak. Launched in October 2017, Khabri is another fastest-growing digital audio platform providing content in the regional language. "We urge Indian corporate leaders to come forward and reclaim the country's business ecosystem and consumers through supporting/investing in Indian startups," said Sandeep Singh, co-founder and president, Khabri. "Since the word spread that Indians now have a homegrown and more entertaining alternative to TikTok, we have been recording traffic beyond expectations on our app," said Nayak. Lifestyle community commerce platform Trell has witnessed more than 1 million downloads after India banned Chinese apps. With over 30 million downloads and 9 million monthly active users on its app, Trell has witnessed a 25 times growth within one year. "We welcome all the Tiktok and Chinese apps content creators with open arms to come and engage on Trell. As the largest Indian lifestyle social app, we will continue to ensure that the privacy and data of users will be protected," said Pulkit Agarwal, Co-Founder, Trell. --IANS na/in

Homegrown social media apps turn restless for big leap

<ul><li>InShorts, that started with a simple idea of summarizing news in 60 words, has now achieved a revenue run rate of $10 million per annum in FY19 and is aiming to double the figure this year. </li><li>InShorts has more than 300 advertisers and adds around 10 new advertisers every month. Its clientele list includes global <keyword id="31174" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="brands">brands</keyword> like Vodafone, OnePlus, Mercedez, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Myntra, among others. </li><li>The last big brand to leverage InShorts’ branded content was Netflix for 13 Reasons Why, Ghoul, Narcos</li></ul> It was in 2013 when Azhar Iqubal, Anunay Arunav of IIT Delhi, and Deepit Purkayastha of IIT Kharagpur came up with the idea of curating the most significant news items of the day and serving them in 60-word summaries. This was later tested on a Facebook page which quickly got the reader’s attention and within a few months, the team launched a mobile app called ‘News in Shorts.’ Cut to now, InShorts has around 300 advertisers investing on their platform and around 10 new advertisers come on board every month. The first brand to advertise on its platform was Airtel and now its clientele includes global brands like Vodafone, OnePlus, Mercedez, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Myntra. “We have done multiple campaigns with Netflix for their web series like Narcos, 13 Reasons Why, The Umbrella Academy, and Ghoul. For Amazon Prime, we have done a campaign around Oscar-nominated sci-fi movie - Ready Player One, a Comedy-drama series - Whiskey Cavalier and many more. We have also partnered with brands like Toyota, Levis, etc, in the past,” shares <keyword id="38485" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Tarun-Arora">Tarun Arora</keyword>, CMO, Inshorts. InShorts has achieved a revenue run rate of $10 million per annum in FY19 and is aiming to double it this year. It further aims to increase its user base by 3X in three years from its current user base of 10 million people on the back of its unique advertising model. It targets the smartphone generation who are short on time and want to stay updated with the current affairs. Hence, the majority of readers are from metros and Tier I cities. It gets 38% of traction from the age group of 18-24 and 40% of its users are in the age group of 24 - 35 years. Advertising Model It was InShorts’ advertising model that became a hit in a few years and helped it become operationally profitable in 2017. On the other hand, Circa, a short-form content portal, failed to monetize its platform despite raising $5.7 million. Inshorts pioneered the concept of short-form branded content on its app, which is the driving wheel for its growth and profitability. Arora says a few more content platforms followed their suit later. Currently, the platform has non-intrusive ads, broadly divided into six categories -- out of which ‘60 words branded story’ is the most preferred one. Whereas the most engaging formats are ‘Digital Magazines’ and ‘Fact Cards’; the former is a mix of creatives with gifs, videos, and polls and latter is a compilation of interesting facts about a brand, industry or an occasion day. Fact Cards are highly engaging as they get shared on social media very often. ‘Digital Magazines’, on the other side, helped Netflix get 3X more engagement as compared to text ads for its series - ‘The Umbrella Academy,’ within two weeks of its release. Plan Ahead After building a strong user base in Tier I cities, InShorts is now betting big on Tier II and Tier III cities. “The app now is pretty popular amongst influencers like enterprise professionals, politicians and CXOs throughout the spectrum. We are also trying to penetrate into Tier III cities, where we have seen a high potential of users. The future looks even more exciting with this next half of the population joining the digital generation. Our plan is to continuously work on solutions that would best suit the content needs of these new internet users,” concludes Arora.

How InShorts garnered a revenue run rate of $10 million on the back of its advertising model

News is an evitable price of information, without which people will wander clueless and be unobservant of the happening around them. But who has the time to go through detailed analysis. Most news mediums publish lengthy descriptions of news and smartphone users do not have the time to go through everything and in details. <keyword id="2908522" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="NewsInShorts">NewsInShorts</keyword> (NIS), as the name suggests, delivers news in a very succinct way, aimed to save your precious time. Targeted towards the mobile Indian, NIS aims to transform the news scenario of the country. 
 

	Founded by Iqubal Azhar and his two friends Deepit and Anunay, it has simultaneously made its way to the top 3 news apps on Google Play Store (News and Magazine section) with a 4.6 rating.
 
 With 5 lakh downloads, it currently ranks second in the Apple iStore and Google Playstore. The credit goes to the young innovative minds of the team who left IITs and started this <keyword id="6404679" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="start-up">start-up</keyword>. 
 

	 “It is the simplicity of the app that worked very well for the app. We are not focussed in generating any revenue now. We are solely focussed in enhancing user experience,” said Azhar Iqubal, co-founder of NewsInShorts.
 
 

	So what makes it better than the rest
 
 

	 “We have crossed half a million mark by the end of April. We plan to hit the million download mark sometime in June this year and at the rate at which we are going right now, it will surely happen,” he asserted.
 
 

	What is the driving force behind such ambitious target?
 
 

	Unlike others in the field, it is not an aggregator of news. It gives the headline and a 60 word summary. If one is interested he can read the detailed coverage of the story from any other news medium. The best part is by the summary, a person gets a fair idea of the news.
 
 

	“We (the founders) were among the ones who did not consume news. Partly, because we did not have time and mostly as we were too lazy to read the whole news. So we missed out on a lot. We realised this is the condition of today’s youth. Hence we made this,” said Iqubal.

	NewsInShorts have in-house team that manually curates and summarizes the news in categories like national, commercial enterprise, sports, engineering science, and so along.
 
 

	Besides, this first of its kind app makes browsing easier as one can easily flip between news, within few seconds.
 
 

	 Growth 
 
 

	Few interesting numbers to show their growth
 
 

	· 500k downloads in Google appstore.

	· They have more than 100K daily unique users.

	· A daily user of the app consumes more than 90% of the articles published. At present they publish around 60 news items a day, and a user browse through more than 50 of them.

	· The top 10 articles daily have views of more than 100 thousand.
 
 

	Challenges
 
 NewsInShorts faces two main challenges in the market, one in terms of algorithm and other in terms of competitoin in the market. Iqubal do not see any strong competitor as such, right now, but in the long run they see <keyword id="6354616" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Twitter">Twitter</keyword> as their competitor. 
 “<keyword id="1293640" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Yahoo-News">Yahoo news</keyword> is different. Unlike Yahoo news and news start-up <keyword id="1323837" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Circa">Circa</keyword>, they are a place of news discovery and not consumption,” he said. 
 

	Any technology is incomplete without updated algorithm. Updating algorithm according to users’ taste is a tedious brain cracking task but for these IITians it is a child’s play.
 
 

	“In a day thousands news get updated. The challenge is to develop an algorithm so that user can filter out which 100 news they want to read out of those 200-300 news items that we suggest to them. If everything goes well, by the end of June the product embedded with this algorithm should be ready,” said Iqubal.
 
 

	Future
 
 

	They plan to launch it in multiple languages by this year end. And in three months they will launch in Hindi.

	Also, at present we have 60 news items a day but they plan to extend that to 100 news items per day, said Iqubal.
 
 

	NewsInShorts in the news
 
 The unconventional news curator NewsInShorts recently raised Rs 25 crore in Series A funding. The investment is led by <keyword id="526777" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Tiger-Global">Tiger Global</keyword>, with participation from Rebright Partners of Japan and existing investors Sachin and <keyword id="6364080" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Binny-Bansal">Binny Bansal</keyword>. 
 
(image credits: NewsInShorts)

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