Naveen Tewari, Co-Founder and CEO of InMobi Ltd. in Bengaluru
Glance, a mobile content platform from the founder of India’s first unicorn, achieved a valuation of more than $ 1 billion after completing a Google-led funding round, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The unit of Alphabet Inc. and billionaire Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital invested $ 145 million in the 18-month-old startup, whose app uses artificial intelligence to select a personalized source of entertainment, news, sports scores and video game content and pressure you to block it. screens, according to a statement. Mithril had previously invested $ 45 million in Glance, bringing the total funds raised by the startup to $ 190 million.
Bangalore-based Glance Digital Experience Pvt is the second unicorn from the group that created InMobi, a cloud marketing platform that became India’s first tech startup to reach the milestone. The group was founded by 43-year veteran Naveen Tewari, a former student of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology and holder of an MBA from Harvard Business School.
“Glance marks an Indian-born innovation in the consumer Internet space,” said Tewari, the group’s chief executive, in an interview. “Just as Google dominates search, YouTube rules video and WhatsApp is the leader in messaging, Glance aims to dominate the lock screen,” he said in a Zoom call from his home in Bengaluru.
Glance currently has 115 million daily active users who average 25 minutes on the app each day. The app operates only on the Android ecosystem and has partnered with major device makers including Samsung Electronics Co., Xiaomi Corp., Oppo, and Vivo.
By partnering with Google, the company plans to bring its product to the rest of Asia and launch it in the United States, where it will partner with operators, and South America in 2021, Tewari said. Glance is currently focused on acquiring users and has just begun experimenting with ad-based monetization models, according to Tewari.
The startup’s other app, short video platform Roposo, saw a surge in downloads over the summer after rival TikTok was banned in India along with dozens of other China-based apps amid security concerns. and privacy. The new capital would help the company build a stronger artificial intelligence backbone.
“ByteDance has shown the world that next-generation mobile products are based on artificial intelligence,” said Tewari. “Like ByteDance, which dominated China before going global, we are India’s leaders going global. Call it the orientalization of consumer artificial intelligence technology.”
(With the exception of the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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