Internet group Tencent has led a $50m series C round for India-based news aggregation app developer NewsDog, the Economic Times reported on Monday.
The round also featured Legend Capital, the venture capital firm backed by conglomerate Legend Holdings, as well as online advertising and business intelligence services provider DotC United Group and VC firm DHVC.
NewsDog, which is owned by holding company Hacker Interstellar, runs a news app available in 10 local languages which claims to have 50 million users.
The company relies on a network of some 30,000 writers and also runs a self-publishing platform, WeMedia, where non-affiliated writers can submit content that can be seen by its readers in return for a share of the resulting advertising revenue.
The series C funding will be put toward product development and the expansion of NewsDog’s content creator network. It also intends to open multiple offices across India, adding to the two it runs in the western cities of Pune and Gurugram.
Yi Ma, NewsDog’s founder and CEO, told VCCircle: “After the new round of financing, the company’s expansion plans will focus on two aspects, one is to create a more dynamic content platform for users by enriching localised experience by adding more regional languages.
“The other is to constantly buttress our technical capabilities in order to provide users with a more personalised experience.”
NewsDog’s main competitors in the Indian market are DailyHunt and Inshorts. It has not publicly disclosed any previous funding.