Digital news platform FactorDaily found itself in a sweet spot last weekend after its coffers got swelled by a new funding round. Although nowadays fundraising has become a ritualistic event but FactorDaily’s latest fundraising stands out for the fact that it received funds from two of the country’s most famous startup entrepreneurs. These were Vijay Shekhar Sharma from Paytm and Girish Mathrubootham from Freshworks.
Both these well-known entrepreneurs and other existing investors including Blume Ventures and Accel Partners have together poured investment of Rs 5.7 crore ($875,000). In fact, this is the second time that Sharma has invested in the FactorDaily. His first round of investment came during the seed funding round in 2016, a year when FactorDaily was actually incorporated by Pankaj Mishra.
Mishra claims that the rise of digital news platforms like FactorDaily is testimony of the fact that internet and technology penetration is completely changing the landscape of news readers across the country. He argues that today significant portion of news readers want to read news that are deep and analytical. Rather than shallow and superficial news that today’s breaking news keeps offer us.
FactorDaily, for instance, exclusively focuses on technology’s impact on society. The news website is filled with stories how modern day apps, social media and other technological platform are changing our day-to-day lives.
Meanwhile, it seems that digital news platforms are having good run as far as funding goes. Last week, digital news portal The Print (founded by senior journalist Shekhar Gupta) got funding of Rs 3.49 crore from existing investors including veteran entrepreneur Ratan Tata. Additionally, subscription-based news startup The Ken also managed to raise significant amount of money from clutch of individual investors. This was the second funding round for The Ken.
