Mumbai: Television broadcaster Star India has picked up a minority stake in Bengaluru-based media-tech start-up Zapr Media Labs, which owns a proprietary technology that analyses television viewership with the help of audio recognition tool.
Zapr has been looking to raise $8-10 million. Star India has not disclosed the financial details of the deal, but ET has learnt Star India might cough up about $8 million as part of the primary and secondary investment.
Zapr provides targeted digital analytics and insights into offline consumption behaviour and Star India’s OTT platform Hotstar will join forces with Zapr as part of the deal to build a deeper understanding of mobile audiences.
“Zapr was in the market to raise between $8-10 million and had met a lot of financial investors. However, they did not see the value of the product, which a strategic player like Star discovered,” said an industry source. “It is truly a product valuation deal, which in terms of revenue multiples, will look insane.”
Meanwhile, on the strategic partnership between Zapr and Hotstar, Ajit Mohan, CEO at Hotstar, said the OTT platform has seen a massive growth in number of subscribers as well as time spent, making advertisers take note of the medium.
“Advertisers are starting to realise how powerful this combination is, but we want to offer more. We ask ourselves, can we move beyond boxing consumers in traditional demographics of age and gender? Can we offer them content and advertisements in a much more personalised manner? That is where this partnership with Zapr comes in,” explained Mohan.
Incidentally, in the western and more mature markets, streaming services are entirely behind paywalls and advertisers have no access to their audiences. Indian platforms like Hotstar, however, claim access to an audience that is actually engaged and paying attention.
The two companies will work together to analyse audience in a way that can be leveraged by brands to create personalised communication and offers, now that the deal has been inked.
Sandipan Mondal, Co-Founder and CEO of Zapr Media Labs, said Hotstar already has a lot of subscriber data, which will be fused with Zapr’s and together the two companies will be able to offer more targeted analytics.
Mondal added with the Star India investment help the company accelerate the pace of research and development and grow its product portfolio. He added that after Star coming in as an investor, Zapr is adequately funded for next phase of growth and will not be raising additional funds soon.
For Hotstar, the partnership will also help the company evolve from a media start-up to a technology and analytics company aiming to shape the next wave of mobile usage and advertising in India.
“We are sitting on a lot of data, which we want to analyse in order to create more value for our subscribers as well as advertisers,” Mohan added. “We believe we have a shot at creating the world’s premier truly personalised advertising service, which is a win-win for both, brands as well as consumers.”
Zapr, which claims of having an audience profile base of 30 million, was co-founded in 2012 by IIM Ahmedabad batchmates, Mondal, Deepak Baid and Sajo Mathews. A clutch of angel investors, including marquee entrepreneurs, have invested into the company over the years.
Source: The Economic Times
