The Viral Fever has secured $5M funding from Tiger Global

Contagious Online Media, the parent of original video content platform The Viral Fever (TVF) has raised close to $5 million in fresh funding from Tiger Global Management, regulatory filings show.

The New York-based investment firm has ploughed in Rs 34.6 crore as part of TVF’s Series D round through its Internet Fund III earlier this month. The investment follows Tiger Global’s $5.8 million investment in the startup last June.

According to Paper.vc which tracks the startup funding, TVF’s post-round valuation grew by at least 13.8% in the new round to $82 million, compared to its previous fundraise. However, it could not be ascertained if the content platform will raise money from other investors as part of its new round.

TVF is known for making shows such as The Kota Factor, Pitchers, Permanent Roommates, and Qtiyapa, which are targeted at India’s young, web-savvy demographic. While the startup initially used YouTube as its primary channel, it has built its own website and app TVF Play more recently.

Over the past few months, Tiger Global has ramped up its pace of investments in India, harking back to 2015 when the company was among the biggest investor in Indian consumer Internet startups. However, the bulk of the investment firm’s new bets have been in the cross-border enterprise and software-as-a-service space.

Tiger’s continued backing of TVF breaks the mould of its latest investments in India, after Scott Shleifer took over the firm’s private equity portfolio from Lee Fixel.

Founded in 2010 by Arunabh Kumar as a YouTube channel creating original shows, TVF has a clutch of high-profile startup founders as its backers, a list which includes Flipkart’s Binny Bansal, Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal, and Ankit Bhati, and Freecharge and Cred co-founder Kunal Shah.