ETtechMumbai: Rigi.Club has raised $10 million in its Series A funding round, co-led by Accel India, Sequoia Capital India and Stellaris Venture Partners.
Founded in October 2021 by second time entrepreneurs Swapnil Saurav and Ananya Singhal, Rigi.Club enables creators and influencers to monetize their community across all platforms, including WhatsApp, Telegram, or Instagram.
It will use the funds to strengthen its technology, hiring and expansion, founders told ET.
Rigi.Club was part of the first cohort of Accel Atoms, a program by Accel India for pre-seed startups.
Angel investors such as Nitish Mittersain (CEO, Nazara), Apaksh Gupta (CEO, OneImpression), Anupam Mittal (Founder, Shaadi.com) and creators like Tanmay Bhat, also invested in the round.
“Over the last five months, we have built a user base of over 200,000 users. In the next 12 months, we plan to take this to more than 10 times,” said Saurav, its chief executive.
Influencers use the platform to launch courses, conduct paid webinars, and launch free and paid communities through the Rigi app. Saurav and Singhal co-founded real money gaming firm Halaplay, which was sold to Nazara Technologies.
“One of the defining trends in consumer-tech over the next decade will be the notable shift of consumers from platform preferences to creators themselves. With a nudge from the pandemic, we have already been witnessing explosive growth and fascinating levels of engagement with both existing and emerging creators,” said Rahul Chowdhri, Partner, Stellaris Venture Partners.
In the last few years, India has seen a bunch of startups including Y-Combinator-backed Tag Mango and Qoohoo, backed by Unacademy cofounder Gaurav Munjal, launch platforms that enable direct monetisation for creators. In fact, edtech unicorn Unacademy has its own platform Graphy for creators to sell their courses.
“As part of the first Atoms cohort their speed of execution in building a platform that supports different social channels has been just amazing. With the creator economy booming, we’re thrilled to be partnering with Rigi,” said Prayank Swaroop, partner at Accel India.
According to the company, over 50 million global creators are largely dependent on ad-shares or brand-partnerships for income, which are irregular and quite often unsubstantial. This is largely because direct fanbase monetization is fundamentally broken as the user journey is deeply fragmented, wherein each stage in the journey is spread across multiple platforms and tools.
Founded in October 2021 by second time entrepreneurs Swapnil Saurav and Ananya Singhal, Rigi.Club enables creators and influencers to monetize their community across all platforms, including WhatsApp, Telegram, or Instagram.
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Rigi.Club was part of the first cohort of Accel Atoms, a program by Accel India for pre-seed startups.
Angel investors such as Nitish Mittersain (CEO, Nazara), Apaksh Gupta (CEO, OneImpression), Anupam Mittal (Founder, Shaadi.com) and creators like Tanmay Bhat, also invested in the round.
“Over the last five months, we have built a user base of over 200,000 users. In the next 12 months, we plan to take this to more than 10 times,” said Saurav, its chief executive.
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Influencers use the platform to launch courses, conduct paid webinars, and launch free and paid communities through the Rigi app. Saurav and Singhal co-founded real money gaming firm Halaplay, which was sold to Nazara Technologies.
“One of the defining trends in consumer-tech over the next decade will be the notable shift of consumers from platform preferences to creators themselves. With a nudge from the pandemic, we have already been witnessing explosive growth and fascinating levels of engagement with both existing and emerging creators,” said Rahul Chowdhri, Partner, Stellaris Venture Partners.
In the last few years, India has seen a bunch of startups including Y-Combinator-backed Tag Mango and Qoohoo, backed by Unacademy cofounder Gaurav Munjal, launch platforms that enable direct monetisation for creators. In fact, edtech unicorn Unacademy has its own platform Graphy for creators to sell their courses.
“As part of the first Atoms cohort their speed of execution in building a platform that supports different social channels has been just amazing. With the creator economy booming, we’re thrilled to be partnering with Rigi,” said Prayank Swaroop, partner at Accel India.
According to the company, over 50 million global creators are largely dependent on ad-shares or brand-partnerships for income, which are irregular and quite often unsubstantial. This is largely because direct fanbase monetization is fundamentally broken as the user journey is deeply fragmented, wherein each stage in the journey is spread across multiple platforms and tools.
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