An business supply near the event informed TOI that Google contributed over two-thirds of the quantity. The identical supply mentioned the funding values Look at over $1 billion, making it maybe the tenth unicorn to be created in India this 12 months. Unicorns are non-public corporations valued at over $1 billion.
This additionally places Tewari among the many few on the planet who’ve created a couple of unicorn. The mobile promoting platform InMobi, which he based in 2007, turned a unicorn when SoftBank invested $200 million within the firm in 2011.
“Look is on a tear, and Google’s funding is a superb validation of our innovation,” Tewari informed TOI in an unique interplay following the announcement of the funding. “Our DAU (every day energetic customers) has touched 115 million, from about 70 million a 12 months in the past, and every consumer is spending about 25 minutes on it per day. That will put us among the many high content material platforms on the planet, alongside Fb, WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok,” he mentioned.
He mentioned it’s the primary such platform to return out of India. “We personal the lock display content material place, simply as FB, WhatsApp and others personal their areas. There’s nobody within the rearview mirror for us. ByteDance (proprietor of TikTok) and Look present that new-age improvements at the moment are popping out of Asia. It’s the Easternisation of client tech,” he mentioned.
Look delivers AI-driven personalised content material in a number of languages together with English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Bahasa (Indonesia) on the lockscreen of Android smartphones. The lock display as soon as confirmed solely time and notifications. Look launched a dynamic aspect to it, displaying information, leisure and video games, that are customised over time based mostly in your pursuits. It’s straightforward to devour with only a faucet on the lock display, obviating the necessity to enter totally different apps. Tewari mentioned information and leisure are the largest drivers of Look.
Look’s acquisition of video-sharing social media platform Roposo final 12 months helps in the direction of content material creation. Roposo has some 3 million month-to-month energetic creators.
“Look is a superb instance of innovation fixing for mobile-first and mobile-only consumption, serving content material throughout lots of India’s native languages,” mentioned Caesar Sengupta, VP at Google. “Nonetheless too many Indians have hassle discovering content material to learn or providers they’ll use confidently, in their very own language. And this considerably limits the worth of the web for them, significantly at a time like this when the web is the lifeline of so many individuals. This funding underlines our robust perception in working with India’s revolutionary startups in the direction of the shared aim of constructing a really inclusive digital financial system that may profit everybody,” he mentioned.
Google earlier this 12 months dedicated to take a position $10 billion in India over the following five-seven years. It introduced in July an funding of $4.5 billion in Reliance Jio.
Ajay Royan, managing basic accomplice and co-founder of Mithril Capital, mentioned Look is a strong innovation to democratise content material on the cellular Web.
India is Look’s largest market, adopted by Indonesia. Tewari mentioned the plan is to take it to South America and the US quickly, and likewise deeper into Asia. He mentioned Look would have a look at creating income fashions subsequent 12 months.
On InMobi’s promoting platform – referred to as Advertising Cloud – Tewari mentioned 2020 was the very best 12 months for the corporate, and it’s now strongly worthwhile. The corporate turned worthwhile in 2016.
