Delhi-based OTT platform has raised Rs 40 crore in funding led by Blume Ventures. The round also saw participation from NB Ventures, Dholakia Ventures, TSM Ventures, WeFounderCircle, Mumbai Angels, Tarmac Ventures, Tailwind Ventures, Longtail Ventures, Lets Venture, and AngelList.
The company previously raised Rs 31 crore, bringing the total capital raised to Rs 71 crore.
Launched in November 2019 by Vinay Singhal, Shashank Vaishnav, and Parveen Singhal, STAGE is a digital, hyper-localised, professionally-generated content platform offering trending, entertaining, and informative content in multiple languages and dialects.
Speaking about the funding, Vinay Singhal said, “The capital raised will be used to go deeper in Haryana and Rajasthan, create more original content, and grow the product.”
“We plan to capture 10% of 25 million+ households watching video content in Haryana and Rajasthan by mid-2024. STAGE’s vision is to become a platform for entertainment, connection & celebration of cultures for all dialect speaking people in the country. By 2027, we plan to launch in the top 20 dialects of the country, which have a potential to reach 200 million+ households”.
STAGE started with Haryanavi content in 2019, and now claims to have 225,000+ subscribers, and adds 25k+ subscribers per month, growing 30% M-o-M.
The platform has produced many web series in Haryanvi, including Akhada, Group-D, College Kaand, Opri Parai, etc. On the back of this strong product-market-fit and customer love, STAGE launched the Rajasthani dialect in June 2022 and already has 10k+ subscribers.
Karthik Reddy of Blume Ventures said, “STAGE’s slogan describes the passion and motivation of the team to build for the immense diversity of language and dialect that India offers. Building quality content is the best bet to conserve our dialects and languages and this is STAGE’s mission. With two dialects launched and dozens more to build, we are excited to be partners on this journey.”
