Reading is a good habit, a sentence we have listened to throughout our childhood. Everyone loves to read, whether it is reading a comic book, a novel, newspapers, or encyclopedias. Reading opens up a whole new range of possibilities in the reader’s mind and expands one’s imagination skills. But sometimes, language becomes a hindrance when it comes to reading. Most of the books are generally published in the native language of the author and hence people belonging to different language-speaking groups cannot understand it. The presence of a platform providing the available content in almost all languages is the need of the hour.
The same idea was applied by Rajneet Pratap Singh, a former salesman at Vodafone and ex-FMSian along with Prashant Gupta, Sahradayi Modi, Rahul Ranjan, and Sankaranarayanan Devarajan when they found Pratilipi in 2014. The basic plan was to make all the content available in almost all the regional languages of the nation. Hence, ensuring that everyone is compatible with their own language and nobody is unable to read a book because of language barrier.
Recent In News
Pratilipi has asked its employees to look out for jobs following a delay in its December 2023 salary payouts amid a fund crunch. The firm was expecting to close in on a $300M funding by the end of last year but is still not secured.
First Traction
In the initial stage, the company secured funding of ₹30L in March 2015 which was led by from TLabs(Times Internet Accelerator). Further, it raised $1M invested by Nexus Ventures Partners in 2016. At the time of its launch, it used to operate in two languages.
Year-over-Year Analysis
In FY19-20, the company gross revenue was ₹5.6Cr and the growth rate was 21.4% YoY. The total funding secured by the firm was $5.6Mn by 2020. The total loss incurred was ₹36.76Cr.The firm was valued at $104M in that year.
For the next fiscal year, the company’s value surged to $269M. The revenue generated was ₹5.77Cr. This mere increase in revenue may be due to the introduction and growth of tech platforms following same business idea in this year, example being Pocket FM. Total funding raised till 2021 was $12.6M approximately. The net loss for this year was ₹96.91Cr.
For FY22, the B2C,SaaS-modeled firm overall revenue surged to ₹14.4Cr. The growth rate observed was 250%. The firm has secured $61M funds by then. The startup reported a loss of ₹196.44Cr in 2022.
In 2023, the Bengaluru-headqaurtered startup valuation declined to $254Mn. There was a significant growth in total revenue to ₹40.1Cr in FY23. The firm incurred net loss of ₹152.84Cr this year. As of 2023, the firm has secured $81.1M as funds. The growth rate observed was 278%. Company’s latest funiding in Series D of $450K led by Krafton and Alteria Capital was also announced this year.
In FY24, the firm expects the gross revenue of ₹60Cr at the growth rate of 70%.A net loss of ₹43Cr is predicted in this financial year. Due to the delay in Series E funding the firm did not raise any fundings this year. The company aims to achieve complete profitability in FY25.
Expansion
The Online Content Market sectored startup in April 2022 announced bringing Westland Books under its wings. With this the firm now has audiobooks, podcasts, comics, novels , and other stories to be read/listened to on their platform. As of now, Pratilipi focuses on collaborating with higher valued production houses. The firm wants to leverage its IPs and skill to produce great output. The company also expects to connect with web series as well.
Competition
Pencil, YourQuote, shabd.in, storymirror.com, popxo.com, EkankTechnologies are some of its competitors in the market. Currently YourQuote, NotionPress, and Pratilipi shares equal share in the market(23%).
Acquisitions
The firm made its first acquisition in 2015 of IVM podcasts, a podcasts distributing network. IVM podcasts has its headquarters in Mumbai. Following this digital content platform, Pratilipi acquired The Write Order, provider of print and publishing services in 2018.
