PNN
Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], July 1: Swarajya, both among India's oldest print publications and today's leading digital platforms, has announced a new funding round in its sponsor company Kovai Media Pvt. Ltd. The new round provides additional capital to supplement internal accruals for funding the next phase of rapid expansion and growth for this unique omni channel platform, which achieved profitability in FY 2020-2021. The current round was over-subscribed by existing investors themselves, including Venture Finance & Development Corporation (Hari Kiran Vadlamani) Meridian Investments (Mohandas Pai), and was led by Yuj Bharat Holdings, an affiliate of Yuj Ventures (which represent the interests of Siddharth Yog), who now become the sponsor company's largest shareholder group with 38% ownership.
"The company plans to use the new infusion to significantly expand its editorial desk and add reporters and staff writers across key gateway cities across Bharat. Part of the funds will also be used to upgrade our technology stack including revamped apps, web properties and implementation of modern customer data platforms. These strategic investments will be focussed on significantly increasing the publication's coverage, direct reporting and editorial presence, and also widen and deepen our subscriber base", said Amarnath Govindarajan, the company's Chief Executive Officer and Publisher.
"We are very grateful to our existing investors who continue to amaze us with their unshakeable belief in the cause Swarajya serves in providing a big tent for reasoned right-of-center discussion and debate. They have enabled us to remain editorially independent through trying periods. It is their unwavering support that allows me to re-dedicate myself as Publisher and CEO to the vision and mission of Swarajya", he added.
Swarajya was originally set up in 1956 as a weekly, under the patronage of first Bharat Ratna, Dr. C Rajagopalachari, freedom fighter and India's first head of state of Indian origin (as Governor General from 1948-1950), Chief Minister of undivided Madras State (from 1952-1954), and founder of the liberal Swatantra Party (in 1959) in protest against the socialist ideology and Nehruvian approach increasingly adopted by the Congress Party. Unfortunately, the magazine ceased operations in or around the time of emergency (1977-1980). In early 2014, a group of entrepreneurs who believed in Rajaji's "liberal- conservative right" vision for independent India, acquired the brand and the archives and resurrected and relaunched the magazine.
Swarajya has grown steadily over the last decade and now reaches a target audience of ~ 1 million unique visitors a month It was also among the earliest new age digital media platforms to pivot to a 'reader-pays' model which today has over 20,000 subscribers and accounts for most of the company's revenues, apart from allowing Swarajya to hold independent editorial views on all matters, without fear or favor.
Swarajya will also use some of the funds from the current round of capital to revamp the beloved print edition of the magazine, with richer and more expansive editorial content catering to the discerning reader beyond the daily news cycle.
"We first backed Swarajya back in 2014, as supporters of an independent, economically conservative but liberal voice in the Indian media, when it was not fashionable to do so." ,said Siddharth Yog, founder of Yuj.
"The idea was simply to have a self-sustaining, respected and reasoned voice that analysed, vocalized and championed issues from a center-right perspective - these included free enterprise and limited government; "real liberalism" in supporting true equality with clear, unambiguous but thoughtfully reasoned editorial positions on important matters like the Uniform Civil Code, Article 370, Ram Mandir and Article 377; and introducing young readers to the country's unmatched civilizational heritage to help unshackle long held colonial and slavish mindsets and build self respect. In 2014/2015 very few Indian intellectuals supported such a narrative and even fewer publications in the Indian media espoused or embraced such an editorial policy.
It is a huge tribute to Swarajya, which trod an experimental, lonely and often difficult path in the early days in leading an editorial renaissance of the national narrative in the media, that today many publications and media houses have revamped editorial policies to follow similar discourses, and more intellectuals and citizens alike are testing long held blinkered opinions through a new lens of logic and long supressed facts. While the entrepreneurs we backed made some early mis-steps on some counts, they listened to us and course-corrected quickly. I note too, that they were mostly disciplined in their financial approach in not raising huge amounts of capital and focussing on profitability. Rajaji would have been proud.
It is now my hope that this new round of capital will allow Swarajya to amplify its reasoned voice and claim its rightful place as the leading, liberal, and lucid right of center publication that does justice to the vision of a truly viksit bharat, gives voice to a young and ambitious citizenry, provides an intellectual and moral compass, and allows us to continue to read India right."
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