• STAGE

  Participated · Equity · Jan 2023

  STAGE is a dialect-focused OTT platform that creates and distributes original video content in regional dialects, initially launching with Haryanavi and later adding Rajasthani. The company was started in 2019 by Vinay Singhal, Shashank Vaishnav and Parveen Singhal. It has produced several hit Haryanvi web series and reports strong product-market fit and customer engagement. STAGE claims more than 225,000 subscribers, adds over 25,000 subscribers per month, and is growing 30% month-over-month; the Rajasthani offering launched in June 2022 and has over 10,000 subscribers. The new funding will be used to go deeper into Haryana and Rajasthan, create more original content, and grow the product. STAGE aims to capture 10% of over 25 million households watching video content in Haryana and Rajasthan by mid-2024 and plans to launch in the top 20 dialects by 2027 to reach 200M+ households. Stage is an over-the-top (OTT) video-streaming platform built around dialect-based vernacular content. Launched in 2020 by Vinay Singhal, Shashank Vaishnav and Parveen Singhal, the app has recorded 1.5 million downloads in Haryanvi alone and also offers Rajasthani content. The company plans to roll out new content in Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magadhi this year and is looking at starting subscription services soon. Stage aims to reach 500 million users over the next five years and positions itself to serve underserved audiences in India’s heartland. The founders say their background from small villages informs product decisions to better reflect Bharat’s linguistic diversity. STAGE is a dialect-based hyper-local OTT platform focused on artist-led performing arts such as folk, poetry, storytelling, comedy, and motivational content in local Indian dialects. It will also feature weekly information-led satire delivered by fictional characters. The company claims to be the world’s first dialect-based content platform and estimates a potential addressable market of 450 million. STAGE was born from the team behind WittyFeed (founded by Vinay Singhal, Shashank Vaishnav and Parveen Singhal in 2014) and pivoted in 2019 to launch the OTT product. The Indore-based startup is currently pre-revenue and plans to launch a subscription for monetisation at the end of January 2021. The recent funding is intended to increase content-creation rate and scale distribution to reach the next two million users.

No current team members are available.