Bengaluru based online storytelling platform Pratilipi raises $48 mn in funding led by Krafton

Online storytelling platform Pratilipi has raised $48 million in funding, led by South Korean gaming company Krafton. Existing investor Omidyar Network India also participated in the Series D funding round, along with a host of startup founders including Sahil Barua of Delhivery, Hemesh Singh and Gaurav Munjal of Unacademy, Vidit Aatrey of Meesho, and Amit Agarwal of NoBroker. Pratilipi CEO Ranjeet Pratap Singh also participated in this round.

So far the storytelling platform has raised $78.8 million, including the latest round. The company will use the latest funds to strengthen its IP acquisition and development of various formats including audio books, podcasts, movies, games, web series and comics. Part of the investment will be used for expansion in the overseas market too, the company said.

CEO Ranjeet Pratap Singh said, "Over the last 12-18 months, we have seen a lot of progress, expanding into some new formats as well as finding newer ways for our creators to be successful".

The platform was founded by Singh along with Prashant Gupta, Sahradayi Modi, Rahul Ranjan and Sankaranarayanan Devarajan in 2015. Pratilipi also owns and operates Pratilipi Comics, podcast studio IVM Podcast, and Pratilipi FM.

Pratilipi, based in Bengaluru, has over 2.7 lakh writers and more than 2.5 crore readers. It operates in 12 languages including Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, English, Urdu, Punjabi and Odia.

Meanwhile, Krafton launched Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), the local version of banned game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), on July 2.