Tiger Global Management funds ‘The Viral Fever’
Tiger Global Management LLC has invested $10 million (Rs.65.6 crore) and taken a minority stake in 'The Viral Fever', an online digital-entertainment channel. Reportedly, Tiger Global picked up a stake close to 25% in the firm, valuing it at around Rs.270 crore. Contagious Online Media Network Pvt Ltd- The Viral Fever's parent company, earned a profit of Rs.22 lakh last year,
Tiger Management Corporation founded by Julian Robertson was a hedge-fund which operated from 1980-2000. After closing his firm, Julian started using his capital and experience to help upcoming hedge-funders known as 'Tiger Seeds' in return for a company's stake. One such Tiger seed was Tiger Global Management founded in 2001 by Chase Coleman-III, who was estimated as one of the most profitable hedge-fund founders.
Tiger Global has stakes in close to 110 companies mostly based in the Internet sector. It has raised funds of about $35 billion to become the largest and most active startup investor over the years.
'The Viral Fever' is an online video-content creator channel, which was founded by Arunabh Kumar, an alumnus of IIT, Kharagpur. TVF was started to reach out to the younger generation covering topics like Indian, movies, lifestyle, social concepts, politics, TV programmes, etc. in their videos. Pitchers, Permanent Roommates, Qtiyapa, Barely Speaking with Arnub are some of the popular web series of TVF's YouTube channel.
US magazine, Forbes stated in a report that a total of $54 million have been generated by the top 10 online video content creators on YouTube for 2014 and 2015.
Tiger Global investments in India were on the rise, as it funded around 18 Indian firms by 2015. E-commerce and online marketplace companies like Shopclues, Roposo, LimeRoad, Quikr, InShorts, Grofers, LocalOye, Culture Machine and Policy Bazaar were funded so far. Tiger Global also invested in other firms like Chaayos, Delhivery, Freshdesk, Chargebee, Moonfrog labs, Ather Energy and Vedantu.
Tiger Global Management funded around $400 million to Ola cabs along with other investors to increase the value of Ola cabs to $5 billion. Tiger Global also increased their investments in e-commerce giant Amazon by $1.1 billion to buy 2.44 million more Amazon shares. Flipkart, Amazon's arch rival is Tiger Global's existing portfolio firm, with investment amount similar to that of Amazon's.
Tiger Global first invested in the Indian online video content sector by funding 'Culture Machine' which runs the 'Being Indian' YouTube channel.
