MUMBAI: India’s largest digital media entertainment company, Hungama, has raised an investment of US$25M, led by leading smartphone company Xiaomi, along with existing investors Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and ace financial investor and Indian billionaire, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. The funding is focused on growing its premium movie and TV, OTT service, Hungama Play; including addition of 1500 hours of TV content and original programming
Hungama is a pioneer in digital media entertainment since its inception 17 years ago. The company has constantly innovated and delivered differentiated, premium audio and video content to its consumers across web and mobile platforms, fuelling the company’s growth to becoming the largest overall digital platform in India. Hungama has over 65mn monthly active users across all its platforms, consuming a content base of over 3.5mn premium digital units across audio and video.
With this round of funding, Hungama will expand the content library and further invest in world class technology on its mobile app platforms Hungama Music for music and Hungama Play for premium video including movies, television and original series. Hungama will soon add over 1500 hours of television content along with original content to its current Hungama Play offering of over 8000 movies in English and 12 Indian languages
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Speaking about the funding round, Founder & CEO – Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, Neeraj Roy said, “India is adding 8 MN new consumers to the Internet each month with 90% of digital consumption being driven by mobile. Young Indians love their music and movies and the mobile will be the most used screen for this generation. Content will drive the next phase of Digital India and we are delighted to partner with Xiaomi as we prepare to bring premium and original digital entertainment to a 100 million Indians before the end of this year.”
Vice President, Xiaomi, Hugo Barra said, “We think of smartphones as a platform for us to deliver Internet services, and this includes content. We are investing in Hungama not only to start integrating content into our smartphones, but also to grow together with them and deepen our understanding of the content sector in India. We have carefully selected Hungama because of what they are doing in terms of aggregating large amounts of content and delivering an amazing user experience.”
Chairman, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala said, “I have been invested into Hungama for several years and participated in this new capital raise as I believe they have built an unique leadership position with the most compelling music and movie OTT service for South Asians globally that is ripe for growth as India will embrace broadband and 4G. We welcome Xiaomi as one of our partners.”
Managing Director, Bessemer Venture Partners, Vishal Gupta said “We are excited about the leadership position that Hungama has built as being the one stop OTT platform across music, videos and movies. We are delighted to have Xiaomi as our partners and will accelerate our growth and leadership.”
Citibank acted as exclusive financial advisor to Hungama on this transaction.
