NDTV has finally announced that it has raised an unspecified amount of money by selling stake in its NDTV Gadgets portal.
The investments have been made after valuing the unit at $50 mln (around Rs 325 cr).
Interestingly, that amount is close to almost half of the value of the parent firm’s shares — which are currently valued at Rs 695 cr.
Among the investors are One97 Communications, owner of consumer brand Paytm, Inflexionpoint (Cofounded by John Scully, former Apple CEO), Pramod Bhasin (Founder, Genpact), Sixth Sense Ventures (Founded by Nikhil Vora), Vindi Banga (Former Chairman, Unilever), Hiro Mashita (Founder and Director of M&S Partners).
For this, NDTV has floated a special subsidiary called Gadgets 360°. It is possible that the unit could enter the retailing of gadgets as well, instead of just providing information. There was, however, on word on this from NDTV.
“NDTV Gadgets has always been the most credible go-to-destination for all gadget enthusiasts in India and it is very exciting to see them move to a transactional model with Gadgets 360°”, said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder – One.97 & Paytm, “we are looking forward to partnering them in this journey and creating a compelling market-place experience which marries content, curation and commerce.”
NDTVGadgets.com is already India’s largest technology website with over 20million monthly unique visitors (as per Google Analytics).
Announcing the additional funding, Kawaljit Singh Bedi, Chief Technology Officer, NDTV Convergence said, “I am personally very excited to have such great investors in Gadgets 360° and to leverage their experience in building this into a large and meaningful business in India and globally, The investors have been pioneers in their field and with their incredible knowledge of building big businesses, they will be crucial for our success.”
NDTV also announced the appointment of Bhawna Agarwal as the CEO of Gadgets 360°. With over 16 years of experience in leading start-ups of the country, Bhawna has been instrumental in setting and Scaling up leading brands such as Yatra.com, Seventymm among others. She has been associated with Luxury Retail in the past and is also on the advisory boards of OYO Rooms, Venture Fund among others.
NDTV Gadgets competes with 91mobiles.com — owned by the Times of India group, and theMobileIndian.com.
“NDTV Gadgets is a very popular and well respected platform amongst gadget lovers in India and is at a very interesting stage from where it can scale up very well. The new platform will be the game changer for the category and I am very excited to be a part of this journey to help take the category to the next level”, added Bhawna Agarwal, CEO, Gadgets 360°
Vikram Chandra, Group CEO, NDTV, stated “Gadgets has become one of the most exciting areas of expansion for the NDTV Group. We had built a powerful brand connect in this thanks to our digital platform NDTVGadgets.com and our TV programming, with popular shows like Gadget Guru and Cell Guru. I am delighted to welcome Paytm and Vijay Shekhar Sharma, as an investor in Gadgets 360°.
“NDTV has always been associated with the most credible reviews and analysis of gadgets and all things tech. This is a great step forward to complete the circle 360 degrees” said Rajiv Makhni, Managing Editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru.
Nikhil Vora, Founder & CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures said “I am most excited to be investing in Gadgets 360°, which has a unique model of being the only curated launch platform for all gadgets. With over 3,000 gadgets launched every year in India, I believe that there is a case for a credible platform to become the brand, which we see in the form of Gadgets 360°.”
