Progressive Media Platform Chaaipani Raises Investment From Marquee Entrepreneur-Investors

Chaaipani Media, internet media company that features positive, solution-oriented stories on important issues, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in an angel round. The company was started by Shruti Chaturvedi, 23, from Ahmedabad.

The investment is made by independent and seasoned entrepreneurs like Mr. Bhupesh Chowdary (CEO, Powermech), Mr. Chiranjiv Patel (MD, PC Snehal Group), Yogesh Chaudhary (Director, Jaipur Rugs), Mr. Prabhu Ram (Founder, Paynear), Mr. Yogesh Goyal (Director, RTG Ventures), Rahul Agarwal (Founder, Idea Insurances) and Pankaj Maloo (Founder, Kreative Fingers).

“Chaaipani has more than 50 writers contributing from all over India and a highly engaged Whatsapp and E-mail community with over 1,35,000 subscribers. The company is catering to a premium audience that consumes and readily takes action on impactful stories published on Chaaipani. The website's reader community has played a pivotal role in lives of several", said Mr. Bhupesh Chowdary who is also on Advisory Board of the company.

“I have seen Chaaipani grow right from its inception. The company has shown a good traction in bootstrapped stage and has a creative business model that helps brands build a meaningful relationship with the target community. Because of this, the company has more strategic partnerships in the pipeline”, said Ahmedabad-based Chiranjiv Patel, investor in the company.

The company plans to use the funding to build high-quality video content, enhance it’s distribution platform as well as strengthen its technology infrastructure. The investment will also be used to set-up a community-driven network to verify and authenticate content shared on the website.

“We started with the singular vision to highlight stories of people doing good work, and make it reach out to others who can join hands and amplify initiatives that are making our world better. Over time, we have become stringent about the background check and verification of every story that is published, ensuring our readers get stories of fact-checked, real heroes", says Shruti Chaturvedi.

Company had earlier raised INR 5.5 L from 188 backers in a rewards-based crowdfunding campaign to kick-start the venture. This is the first external funding for the digital media company. The round was raised in association with Mumbai-based Key Venture by Nidhi Saraf.

Shruti, who launched Chaaipani in October 2015 from Ahmedabad, began her career as a journalist from Ahmedabad. She has also been a popular news anchor in a Gujarat-based national news channel. She is a Psychology graduate from St. Xavier’s College in Ahmedabad and has been honoured with awards such as Build India Award and Karamveer Global Fellowship for her work with Chaaipani.

Chaaipani is an internet media platform that features progressive, solution-oriented stories around Social Impact, Entrepreneurship/Leadership, Innovation, and Arts.

Chaaipani’s content is a rather fresh breeze of positivity in the content space saturated with negative, biased content.

"With our editorial, we want to provide inspiring and well-researched content about important issues and give platform to people to be inspired and do something for what they strongly care about."

The company’s focus now is to build a curated, engaged community audience through online and offline storytelling. Kitli Conversation’s, an offline meet-up format by Chaaipani, went very popular with tier 2 and 3 cities of India. The company hosted 35 Kitli Conversation meets within a year across India.

Chaaipani primarily generates revenues from advertisements on the site and the events it hosts. The platform is run by 7 people which shall tick to 13 by March’18.

“It is always humbling to meet individuals who believe in our mission enough to invest in it. We will continue to serve and build good quality, progressive content and keep improving our offering to better serve the community", said Shruti.

The company used Compulsory Convertible Debenture instrument, and more investors are expected to join in by the beginning of next financial year.

The company had been earlier incubated by Gujarat University Startup & Entrepreneurship Council (GUSEC) — a Gujarat government initiative to support student-run startups.