MUMBAI: India’s largest digital video streaming platform, Hotstar has received a new set of funds worth Rs 10.66 billion ($153 million) from Star India’s India and USA subsidiaries in total according to paper.vc, the online business intelligence platform.
Dissecting the investment, Star India, Hotstar’s parent company injected Rs 8.32 billion of that amount while the remaining Rs 2.34 billion was done so by the company’s American arm.
paper.vc co-founder was quoted as saying to Economic Times: “Its unusual for one sister company to invest in another business in India. If I remember correctly there are obscure foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations pertaining to what are called downstream investments as well. On the other hand it’s not unusual for Hotstar. Star India has been putting money into it at regular intervals since 2015.”
This is the second instance that Star USA has been reported to make an investment in Hotstar, having previously received a whopping Rs 5.16 billion from them in August 2018.
At that point, the platform had nearly 700,000 paid subscribers and its owner, Novi Digital Entertainment Private Limited was valued at $265 million according to Duff and Phelps.
