Pocket Aces: The digital media startup for millennials raises $3 mn led by Sequoia

Mumbai-based Pocket Aces, a digital entertainment company aimed at the Indian millenial, just raised a cool US$3 million in fresh funding, led by VC bigwig Sequoia Capital.

Pocket Aces was founded by Ashwin Suresh, Anirudh Pandita, and Aditi Shrivastava in December 2013. Ashwin and Anirudh were roomies while studying electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They launched the digital media startup to ride the social media wave, as media creation and consumption patterns change fast with the rise of the smartphone.

“The capital raised will be used to create exceptional content, bolster our technology base, and add world-class talent to our team,” Anirudh said.

 

“The plan is to create over 500 short-form live-action and food videos and at least 6 long-form properties over the next year. We will push boundaries by experimenting with unique content-based commerce models as well as new distribution mediums like livestreaming and messaging.”

Pocket Aces says it has created more than 1,000 original content pieces across text and video platforms and sees 2 million monthly page views. Pocket Aces conceptualizes, creates, and distributes original content targeted at millennials, through its three channels: Dice Media, which works with sketches and web series, FilterCopy, which handles short-form content, and Gobble, which works for food-related clients.

“With increasing mobile internet penetration, attention minutes have moved to social media and messaging platforms. [We] look up to companies like Pixar as benchmarks for creative innovation,” Suresh said.

Pocket Aces’ revenue model is centered around native advertising by brands. The company counts Penguin Random House, FreeCharge, Tinder, and Swiggy among clients.

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This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here