Sooperfly rejigs business model; three digital content platforms on anvil

Digital content startup Sooperfly Media Pvt Ltd is launching three new digital video platforms, besides a personal finance-focused platform, as it rejigs its business model.

The firm, which was spinned off as a separate company by The 120 Media Collective Pvt Ltd earlier this month, with UK-based online content firm Diagonal View as a minority stakeholder, has tied up with business journalist Vivek Law to launch a digital content platform called Investonomix.

"The online content platform has been launched in the space of personal finance," says Roopak Saluja, founder and chief executive, The 120 Media Collective and Sooperfly.

Sooperfly is also talking to investors to raise funds to fuel its expansion plans. For details click here.

Sooperfly will also be launching two content platforms for basketball and soccer, respectively. "The soccer platform will be similar to what CricBuzz is for cricket," explains Saluja. He, however, declined to give a timeline for the launch of the new platforms.

CricBuzz, owned by Times Internet Ltd, is one of the foremost portals focused on cricket-related news and live scores of cricket matches.

Sooperfly also plans to create a women-centric content platform, said Saluja, adding that the aim is to reach out to different audience groups through different genres.

As of now, it has Sooperstage, a user generated digital platform where college students can upload videos. It also creates videos which it posts on YouTube.

Having its own platforms is expected to help Sooperfly shore up its revenue, as it is no longer solely dependent on YouTube to bring in the money. YouTube follows a 60:40 ad revenue model where a content producer gets 60 per cent of the revenue with YouTube keeping the rest. According to industry estimates, the ad rate on YouTube is $1-3 cost-per-view (CPV).

All the platforms will follow an advertising-led business model. "While in case of Investonomix, banking and financial services and insurance (BFSI) brands will be the primary advertisers, the yet-to-launch sports platforms will find their share of advertisers in beverage brands, sports apparel brands and others," says Saluja.

Meanwhile, Saluja and his team are looking at creating content for television audiences. Sooperfly had earlier produced The Tara Sharma Show for Star World, the English general entertainment channel of Star India Pvt Ltd.

Earlier, Saluja had said that 120 Media Collective would start producing online content for other over-the-top (OTT) players from April. Sooperfly has produced web series such as Mission Everest 2015, apart from a Kayaking web series Paddle Hard.

Star India Pvt Ltd is the India arm of Rupert Murdoch-led 21st Century Fox. Murdoch also owns News Corp, the parent of this news website.