The digital media platform, The Morning Context or TMC, has raised undisclosed amount in seed funding. Headquartered in Singapore, the seed funding round has come barely seven months after the company’s launch.
Clutch of independent investors spearheaded the debut funding round for TMC. This includes Ajay Nair, MD of OML Entertainment; Jacob Puthenparambil, CEO of REDHILL; Gunavanth Kumar, founder of 4gCapital Venture; Joji Philip Thomas, founder and editor-in-chief of DealStreetAsia; Parag Dhol, MD of Inventus Capital Partners; Nav Ratan, founder of Tetris Capital Ventures; Rahul Jain, head of finance at Locus; Saurabh Abbi, CBO of OML Entertainment and Sonny Badiga, co-founder of Red Fields.
TMC is one of the shinning proponents of emerging digital platforms that are solely focused on subscription models. Subscription model apparently has become the buzz word for digital news platforms, since revenue from conventional advertising has seen a significant drop over the years. New online advertising avenues like native advertising and sponsored content are equally witnessing gradual decline.
As of today, TMC publishes only four articles per week, with most of its articles mainly focused on the niche areas of technology and business. The company claims that its stories are deeply analytical & investigative by nature and help their target readers in deep exploration and enriching their minds.
The company has said that it will use the maiden funds for staff expansion. Most of its staff includes specialized feature writers that are spread across different countries.
TMC faces stiff competition from the likes of The Ken and ET Prime. The ET Prime, which is owned by media giant Bennett & Coleman, certainly has more deep pockets to compete with all the incumbent players.
Notably, the seed funding has come at a time when it has been caught in a legal battle with The Ken. The two competitors have slapped lawsuits against each other, with both players accusing one another of wrong doings.