Digital media venture DealStreetAsia lands first round of funding

• Having expanded to India already, next target is China as it aims to be pan-Asian
• Funding comes ahead of planned Series A in Q1 2016, aiming for US$3.5mil

 
SINGAPORE-based digital media company DealStreetAsia Pte Ltd announced it has landed its first round of funding, an undisclosed amount from angel investor Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the Singapore Angel Network (SGAN), and others.
 
Vijay is founder and chief executive officer of Indian-based mobile commerce platform Paytm, while SGAN is the angel investment arm of the multibillion-dollar Thakral Group of Companies.
 
“Asia is at the centre of the new world economic order. At DealStreetAsia, I find that the team produces credible stories from this region for the world,” Vijay said in a statement issued by DealStreetAsia.
 
Other participants in this round include Hindustan Times Media Group, which publishes business daily Mint in India and MintAsia in Singapore, DealStreetAsia said in its statement.
 
Puthen & Cole, a Singapore-based venture capital firm which invested in DealStreetAsia at launch for a small stake, continues to be an investor.
 
Founded in May 2014, DealStreetAsia covers deal-related news in the region, such as mergers and acquisitions as well as funding, including startup developments. It currently publishes an average of over 40 news and analysis stories daily, it said.
 
It said proceeds from this round of funding will be used to strengthen its existing India and Asean teams, expand operations to Hong Kong and China, and also work towards the launch of the company’s deal analytics and data platform.
 
It currently has a team of 15 people, of which 14 are in editorial.
 
“We have made significant progress during the last 12 months, with editorial presence in Asean countries, and larger teams in India and Singapore,” said DealStreetAsia founder and editor-in-chief Joji Thomas Philip.
 
“We plan to go to China next with outposts in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, and also expand to Japan and Australia, and become a pan-Asia player.
 
“In 2016, we will also launch DealStreetAsia Analytics, a research, deal intelligence and origination platform that will create and mine data to give deal engineers cutting-edge information across Asian markets,” he added.
 
In an email to Digital News Asia (DNA), Philip said that when it launched, the portal was recording fewer than 1,000 pageviews per month up to December 2014.
 
“In both October and November 2015, we crossed 300,000 pageviews a month. Prior to that, we were at about 250,000 to 260,000 pageviews per month for a couple of months.
 
“Off the 301,000 pageviews in November 2015, about 91,000 were unique visitors,” he added.
 
DealStreetAsia launched its India operations in September 2015, and has a strategic tie-up with business daily Mint from the Hindustan Times Media Group. It also expanded to Myanmar in October 2015.
 
The tie-up with Hindustan Times Media Group, which is also an equity holder in the company, will see DealStreetAsia and Mint collaborate and share content and resources across Singapore and India.
 
“The Asean region is becoming the world’s foremost financial hub,” HT Media Ltd chief executive officer Rajiv Verma said in an official statement.
 
“We have been catering to Indian expatriates in Singapore with insightful financial and business news with our weekly MintAsia, and we would now like to strengthen our reach with this collaboration with DealStreetAsia,” he added.
 
This investment comes ahead of a larger Series A round of venture funding which DealStreetAsia plans to close in the first quarter of 2016, aiming for S$5 million (US$3.5 million).
 
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