This second round of funding for New Horizon also saw investments from existing promoters as well as Emergic Venture Capital, which had invested earlier in 2006 in the first round.
New Horizon currently publishes general books across genres as well as audio books in Tamil, English and Malayalam and plans to expand its publishing programme to all the important Indian languages over time.
New Horizon currently has four Tamil imprints. The company publishes both fiction and non-fiction through printed books, audio books, DVDs, the Internet and mobile platforms.
This round of funding will help New Horizon Media put out more titles in Tamil, Malayalam and English, strengthen sales and distribution in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and grow its distribution network across India for its English titles.
New Media was co-founded in 2004 by Badri Seshadri and K Satyanarayan, both of whom were earlier part of the team of co-founders of Cricinfo.com, a popular cricket website, which was sold to the UK-based Wisden Group in 2003.
More From This Section
Said K Satyanarayan, Director, New Horizon Media, "This investment by Beacon India is among the earliest venture capital investments in the Indian book publishing industry. It points to the tremendous growth opportunities for the book publishing in India, with the infusion of capital into the industry."
"We are excited about the opportunity in Indian language content in India and the leadership of the NHM team. In a short span of time, they have been able to publish innovative titles that are in tune with readers' interests, and drive sales and marketing efforts," said Deepak Shahdadpuri, Managing Director, Beacon India, who joins the New Horizon board.
Beacon looks to invest in growth companies across sectors with bias for consumer, infrastructure and businesses benefiting from India's competitive edge.
This is the Fund's fifth investment. Past investments include art auction business Saffronart, real estate developer Vatika Ltd, power EPC company A2Z Maintenance & Engineering and food services business Impresario Holdings.