Times Internet buys news curation app Viral Shots

Times Internet Ltd, the digital arm of media company Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL), has acquired Gurgaon-based Viral Shots for an undisclosed amount.

Founded by Shalini Tewari and Kumar Apurva, Viral Shots is a micro content mobile app that curates stories from over 300 social and web destinations. It claims to be clocking approximately 100 million screen views per month.

"This fits into our prime goal of providing our readers an innovative and informative content experience. We found the format and curated content of ViralShots very addictive and their engagement with users was amazing and feel confident that this can become the number one app in its category," Miten Sampat, VP, corporate development,Times Internet, said in a statement.

Viral Shots currently serves differentiated content in English, Hindi, Bengali and Telugu and shall be available in all the major Indian languages by middle of 2016.

BCCL runs dailies such as The Times of India and The Economic Times besides other media properties.

Times Internet also has a stake in mobile based news aggregator Inshorts

Other investments of Times Internet include Shuttl, Get Me A Shop (GMAS), Taskbucks, CarDekho among others. Last month, Gurgaon-based bus aggregation platform Shuttl raised $20 million in Series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia India and Times Internet Ltd; while Times Internet acquired Get Me A Shop (GMAS), an enablement platform for small businesses, for an undisclosed amount.

In November, it also acquired majority stake in Taskbucks for $15 million.

Times Internet also became the newest investor in Jaipur-based Girnar Software Pvt Ltd, which runs auto portals CarDekho.com and Gaadi.com besides product discovery engine Pricedekho.com. The investment was part of a transaction in which TIL sold auto portal Zigwheels to Girnar for an undisclosed amount.