Chinese mobile maker Oppo has made first-ever investment in the Indian startup ecosystem after leading an Rs 37 crore funding round in the digital media startup POPxo. Oppo led the round along with South Korean firm Neoplux, while POPxo’s existing investor including GREE Ventures, IDG Ventures India and Kalaari Capital also invested in the round.
The deal marks the entry of yet another big Chinese company into the Indian startup ecosystem, after Tencent, Xiaomi and Alibaba having already invested millions across the popular Indian startups including Paytm, Ola, Zomato, BigBasket, Ganna and Hike.
Although Chinese investment carries with it a huge political overtone owing to the frosty relation between New Delhi and Beijing, no one seems to be complaining about this evolving trend. One of the reasons for this may be that Chinese capital is offering much-needed respite to Indian startups as they are coping with the ongoing funding drought in the ecosystem.
POPxo: a digital startup dedicated to young female readers
While there are several good magazines catering to emotive and other needs of young female readers, but there are very few and far quality online contents available for the Genext female readers. PoPxo is trying to address this gap by offering excellent content on wide-range of issues pertaining to today’s female readers. Right from relationships, periods, food recipes to bold issues like sex.
The company claims that approximately 14.3 million people visit its website on monthly basis while 70% of the traffic comes from India’s top 5 metropolitan cities. More than 80% of its traffic obviously compromises of females readers.
Popxo has said that it will use the latest capital infusion to improve its product further and to develop more contents for vernacular markets.
Common ting on Oppo’s investment, Popxo’s founder Priyanka Gill told The Economic Times that Oppo is already one of their biggest digital clients and also helped in setting the price of the investment.