NEW DELHI: Indian sports streaming radio channel, Sports Flashes has laid claim to having reached 45 million subscribers in December 2018 during the men’s national team’s tour of Australia.
With a regular subscriber base of 3.6 million since its inception in January 2018, Sports Flashes is in ‘deep discussions’ to raise Rs 500 million ($7 million) in a Series A round of funding to fuel its expansion looking at the IPL and the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 coming up, Economic Times reports.
Incidentally, the Times of India Group, which owns the business daily, also has a major stake in Sports Flashes.
Sports Flashes founder and CEO Raman Raheja told ET: “We raised pre-series A from a clutch of investors including SRI Capital. Now we are looking at a strategic partner. We are in deep discussions to raise around $7 million in a Series A round.
“We have big plans around the World Cup. While we are in talks with leading OTT players for four-five web-series around top arenas and leaders, there is also a plan to increase our footprint by adding more languages.”
Sports Flashes is planning to broadcast audio feed of the World Cup in 11 languages, including English, Hindi, regional Indian languages and Mandarin. It estimates to increase its reach for the marquee event to 1 billion consumers and spend $7-8 million on content and packaging, with $2 million as profits.
With the Indian radio rights for the English Premier League as well courtesy its partnership with UK-based talkSPORT, it has also signed a similar deal with BBC in the country and three top local stations in Australia as well.
Currently, it is in discussion with radio players in South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Caribbean region to enter global markets in the same way, ET further reports.
