Matrix Partners invests in news app Awaaz

Video content platform Awaaz has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Matrix Partners, a company statement said. The local video news platform, which focuses on regional and hyper local content, will expand its offerings from local breaking news to other local content personalised to the user's feed. The platform will also add other content like horoscope, government updates, vegetable mandi rates and local weather updates among others, the statement added. Sanjot Malhi, Vice President, Matrix India, said in the statement: “Awaaz sits dead centre of our next billion user thesis, and at the confluence of several exciting trends in Indian internet. India is now the largest data consumer in the world at 9GB+/capita usage, with the bulk going to video consumption. At the same time, 9 out of 10 users coming online don't speak English and almost half use their smartphones for their daily dose of news and other content but the supply is limited. Awaaz is trying to cater to this unique opportunity.” Subodh Kolhe, co-founder, Awaaz, said in the statement: “Enabling access to local news and information in regional languages, among other verticals, is our mission at Awaaz. Local updates such as political updates, municipality updates and local incidents are primary concerns for regional users. Most of these demands are not fulfilled with existing platforms. We at Awaaz will be working towards solving this information gap.”