In just over two years, Magzter has more than 16 million users from more than 200 countries, and offers a global catalog of over 3000 magazines from over 900 publishers in more than 30 international languages. Available on multiple platforms and devices, Magzter has been one of the most downloaded apps on iOS in various countries.
Magzter was co-founded by the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Girish Ramdas and President, Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan in 2011. It allows any publisher in the world to digitally publish for a global audience. With headquarters in New York, sales offices and teams in the UK, France, Germany, South Africa, Singapore and a back-office in India, Magzter has rapidly scaled to also become the world’s largest creator of Apple Newsstand apps. As device penetration grows and more and more publishers look for digital, online, tablet and mobile solutions for their content, Magzter’s easy-to-use, fast-loading, self-publishing technology is poised to become a dominant player in the global e-publishing market.
Mr. Girish Ramdas, CEO, Magzter said, “Magzter has become a global leader in digital magazines and the investment from SPH and our existing investor Kalaari is perfectly in line with our expansion plans since SPH is a regional powerhouse and a significant player in the global publishing industry. With this new investment we look forward to growing to be the number one digital reading destination in the world!”
Mr. Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan, President, Magzter said “This Series B funding will be used for our plans to further expand our business by offering new services, content types like digital books and enter new geographies. We are truly excited about this new investment from SPH and Kalaari and we believe both publishers and consumers will benefit from our future expansion plans.”
Ms Deborah Lee, Executive Vice-President, Corporate Development, SPH, says "Investing in Magzter Inc is an opportunity for us to enter into yet another new platform for content delivery and is part of our strategy to enhance content creation and distribution. We are excited to be part of this round of funding and see great potential in Magzter for future growth."
Mr. Rajesh Raju, MD, Kalaari Capital said, “Magzter has exceeded every expectation since our investment 18 months ago. The company continues to break new ground with innovative features and is helping move publishing to the digital age with cutting edge cloud and mobile technologies. We are pleased to be partnering with a reputed organization like SPH in further building Magzter to be a dominant global player.
Global publishers using Magzter include Hearst (USA), Conde Nast (USA), Newsweek (USA), Bloomberg (USA), Maxim, Haymarket (UK), Dennis Publishing (UK), Dogan Burda (Turkey), Media24 (South Africa), Caxton Publishing (South Africa), India Today Group (India), World Wide Media (India), Hearst Shuklev Media (Russia), Amarin (Thailand), Inspire Entertainment (Thailand), Edipresse (HK), Nuclear Media (Australia), Pacific Media (Australia/NZ) and SPH in Singapore.
About Singapore Press Holdings Ltd
Main board-listed Singapore Press Holdings Ltd (SPH) is Southeast Asia's leading media organisation, engaging minds and enriching lives across multiple languages and platforms. SPH has 19 titles licensed under the Newspaper Printing and Presses Act, of which nine are daily newspapers across four languages, and over 100 magazine titles in Singapore and the region. On an average day, – 3.05 million individuals or 76 percent of people above 15 years old, read one of SPH’s news publications. SPH’s internet editions of its major newspapers enjoy over 300 million page views with 20 million unique visitors each month. Other new media initiatives include AsiaOne, omy.sg, ST701, Stomp and The Straits Times RazorTV. SPH has also ventured into book publishing, broadcasting, out-of-home advertising and properties. For more information, please visit www.sph.com.sg.
About Kalaari Capital
Kalaari is a $160 million venture capital fund with a strong advisory team in Bangalore investing in early-stage, technology-oriented companies in India. We are passionate about investing in entrepreneurs who are poised to be tomorrow's global leaders. We seek companies that are capturing new markets, providing innovative solutions, and creating new wealth for India and beyond.
About Magzter Inc.
Magzter Inc. is the world’s largest and fastest growing self-service digital magazine store and newsstand with over 16 million digital consumers, more than 3000 magazine titles and over 900 publishers. Headquartered in New York, Magzter has its offices in London, Chennai and Singapore. Founded by global entrepreneurs, Girish Ramdas and Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan in June 2011, Magzter enables magazine publishers around the world to offer digital editions of their titles to global consumers allowing them to easily access and subscribe to them with a single touch, powered by the ‘Orey Click Publishing System’. Magzter also enables publishers to publish interactive/ audio-visual content because it supports HTML 5.
The Magzter app is available on Apple iOS, Android (Google Play), Windows 8, the Web, Amazon App Store and Huawei App Store and is expanding to more platforms soon. Users can buy their magazines on any of the above devices/platforms and seamlessly port their purchases to any other devices; a feature unique to Magzter.
The company counts among its publisher customers some marquee names including Hearst (USA), Conde Nast (USA), AMI (USA), Newsweek (USA), Dennis Publishing (UK), Haymarket (UK), Media24 (South Africa), Edipresse Asia (HK), India Today Group (India), Alpha Media (USA), Black Enterprise (USA), Singapore Press Holdings (Singapore) and has been rapidly expanding its publisher base with magazines from more than 40 countries including USA, UK, Germany, Spain, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, etc., making Magzter truly the #1 choice for magazine readers and publishers the world over.
