Vokal, a vernacular content platform, founded by former Taxi4Sure founder Aprameya Radhakrishna, has raised $6.5 million in Series A funding by Kalaari Capital along with Shunwei Capital, 500 start-ups, Accel India and Blume Ventures.

The start-up is co-founded by Mayank Bidawataka who was one of the founding team members at redBus, after which he founded TheMediaAnt and Goodbox.

Vokal is similar to apps such as Quora and Reddit and is betting on the fact that the next 500 million internet users will not rely on English for their needs.

Localised content

So, a user can ask a question and if an answer is there on the platform, it will show those results. These questions get answered by experts, who are vetted before they can start answering questions on the platform.

Radhakrishna, in a statement, said that Kalaari Capital has been a strong investor in the past 10 years and understands the present fundamental need for a vernacular product to grow the market of internet users.

“We believe most vernacular users will begin their internet journey consuming content in many forms — entertainment, news, information and knowledge,” added Darshit Vora, Principal, Kalaari Capital.

Vokal, which was launched a few months back, claims that the platform has seen around 3 lakh questions on varied topics that are unique to India.

Voice-based search

Vokal is currently in Hindi and launching in multiple languages in the next few months. It also has a live video streaming feature where experts share their knowledge.

Voice-based search, an area that is fast growing in India, is one of the media through which Vokal is engaging with its users.

Voice assistants such as Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Cortana are in early stages of mainstream acceptance.

Recently, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd developed a ‘Voice Driven Trading’ system for its clients. In 2017, Google estimated that 28 per cent of searches from mobile devices were done using voice in India.

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