Xiaomi leads Rs.170 crore investment in Hungama
Xiaomi led a $25-million (Rs.170 crore) in Hungama Digital Media Entertainment. With this investment in an aggregator and publisher of entertainment content on the internet, Xiaomi marked its first investment in India. Xiaomi invested along with Hungama's existing investors "Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala". It plans to blend Hungama's video on demand service with the Mi platform on smartphones.
Hungama was launched as "Hungama.com" in 1999 as a promotional marketing portal. Headquartered in Mumbai, the online promotions agency was started by Ashish Kacholia, Hiren Ved, Lashit Sanghvi, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, and Neeraj Roy. From a promotional marketing portal, it has grown to where they also work as an "aggregator, developer, publisher, and distributor of Bollywood and Asian entertainment."
Hungama.com has over 20 million users accessing its content on computers as well as mobile devices. Its library includes 5,000 Bollywood, Hollywood, regional movies and TV serials.
Hungama launched www.gaminghungama.com, India's first free multi-user online gaming portal. Hungama was looking towards a registered user base of 1 million in the first year. The site had "latest reviews of PC, console and mobile games from across the world". The freshest gaming data was relayed on the portal- laced with a user forum, a downloads section, and information on the official releases.
In 2012 Hungama (relaunched as Hungama Digital Media Entertainment in 2009) launched a digital platform for artists and music fans called Artist aloud!
Hungama Digital Media Entertainment raised a capital of $40 million (nearly Rs.230 crore) led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Existing investor Intel Capital also participated in the round of funding. Neeraj Roy, managing director and CEO of Hungama said that these funds would be used to "upgrade mobile apps and integrate with the banking system for having loyalty programmes".
Reports claimed that Hungama was engaged in "advanced" talks with existing investors Intel Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners and could raise a capital of $100 million. The soon-to-be-completed round would be deployed to increase the company's footprint in the smartphone category. More specifically, Hungama would be using the funds to invest in developing its "technology, platforms and increase its content libraries".
