News aggregator NewsDog raises $50m from Tencent, others

MUMBAI: Mobile-based news aggregator application NewsDog, which collates articles in English and various regional Indian languages including Tamil, Telugu and Marathi, has raised $50 million in a series-C funding round led by Chinese conglomerate Tencent, along with other investors including California-based venture capital firm DHVC, Legend Capital and Dotc United Group.

The startup has been founded by two Chinese entrepreneurs, Forrest Chen and Yi Ma, and is owned by Hong Kong-based Hacker Interstellar. According to the company, the funds raised will be used to increase the number of professional content creators in the Indian market, besides product development.

The company, which has been topping the Google Play store news category since 2016, claims to have over 50 million users and is available in 10 local languages. NewsDog presently has two offices in India, in Pune and Gurugram, and plans to set up offices throughout the country in 2018. NewsDog also launched a content platform WeMedia, which enables users to submit content. Presently, WeMedia has over 30,000 writers contributing content.


NewsDog competes with players such as Toutiao-backed Dailyhunt, Tiger Globalbacked Inshorts and NewsPoint, owned by Times Internet, part of the group which publishes The Economic Times.