Softbank’s JV co with Bharti to buy 37% in ScoopWhoop

Bharti Softbank (BSB), a joint venture between Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Enterprises and Japan’s SoftBank Corp, has acquired 36.5% stake in ScoopWhoop Media Pvt Ltd through BSB Portal Ltd for Rs 10 crore.

Bharti Softbank (BSB), a joint venture between Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Enterprises and Japan’s SoftBank Corp, has acquired 36.5% stake in ScoopWhoop Media Pvt Ltd through BSB Portal Ltd for Rs 10 crore.

SoftBank recently pledged an investment of $10 billion (over Rs 60,000 crore) in India’s IT sector, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the country in September. The Japanese firm invested $627 million in e-commerce major Snapdeal and $210 million in taxi service aggregator Ola.

Japanese companies committed investments of $35 billion in India when Modi visited Japan.

ScoopWhoop is an India-focused entertainment media start-up. It creates and curates content that gets shared through social networks. Its website and mobile application clock 20 million monthly page views, withover 8 million unique monthly visitors. Over half of the page views are accessed through smartphones.

BSB Portal Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BSY Pte. Ltd, a joint venture between BSB and Yahoo! Japan. BSB Portal builds consumer Internet products and platforms in partnership with telecom operators.

“Data usage on mobiles with the proliferation of 3G and 4G services and increasing smartphone penetration will ensure that such investments provide high returns,” said NK Goyal telecom analyst with CMIE.

India youth population and a growing economy are expected to drive data usage on mobiles.

This is BSB’s second big investment in India after its 2012 buy of a stake in Gurgaon-based value-added services start-up Y2CF.