Inshorts operates an eponymous news aggregator that summarizes articles in 60 words across topics including tech and business. Two years ago the company launched Public, a location-based social app that connects people nearby and is available in multiple Indian languages. Public supports shop owners’ e-commerce, classifieds, entertainment and recruiting use cases, and has grown to more than 60 million monthly active users. That social expansion has driven the startup's wider scale and helped attract high-profile investors. Financially, the company has raised $140 million in the last year and completed a new $60 million financing led by Vy Capital, with a reported valuation of about $550 million. Company leadership and investors say they plan to continue scaling the two content properties. Inshorts operates a popular news aggregator app in India and runs Public, a location‑based social network. Public launched in April 2019 and is available in several major Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Assamese, Gujarati and Marathi. The platform supports local e‑commerce, classifieds, recruiting and also provides entertainment and news. According to the company, Public has amassed more than 50 million monthly active users and users create over 1 million videos on the platform each month. Founder and CEO Azhar Iqubal said the company plans to deepen penetration across India in the coming months and ultimately expand Public outside India. Inshorts is profitable and competes with other Indian players such as DailyHunt. News In Shorts offers an India-focused mobile app delivering roughly 60 concise news bulletins (60 words or less) per day. The company has rapidly grown downloads from about 100,000 in February to 1.3 million, with engagement increasing 18x; earlier metrics showed 40% of registered users logging in weekly and daily users reading about 50 stories each day. The startup is not yet profitable but plans to begin generating revenue before the end of the year through sponsored content and more native, personalized ad formats based on user location and interests. Product plans funded by the new capital include improved Android development (Android accounts for ~80% of devices in India), a personalization engine, and an opinions-sharing feature to let users express and share views. The team also intends to hire more editors to increase the number of briefs daily, add more languages, and potentially expand focus to audiences outside India before year-end. Funding is intended to scale the service and grow the user base while preserving the app’s brief-news format. News In Shorts operates a mobile news digest app that publishes 60-word summaries of the day’s top stories, each with a single link for further reading. The company launched Android-first in India and released an iOS app later; its apps have been downloaded over 100,000 times and see roughly 10,000 downloads per week. Engagement metrics are strong: about 40% of registered users log in weekly and daily users browse an average of 50 stories per day. The 16-person team plans to expand to 60 employees, roughly half editorial and the rest in tech and operations/marketing, to support doubling daily content to 120 summaries. Management is exploring opening the platform to vetted third-party contributors and potential monetization via ads or other product extensions, but the company currently has no defined business model.

Total raised

$119M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Jul 2021