Ekank Technologies: Company Profile

Background

Overview

Founded in 2020 by Summit Nayak and Chetan Rexwal, Ekank Technologies is a Delhi NCR-based startup dedicated to democratizing non-fiction content. The company aims to make history, art, culture, and heritage accessible to a broad audience through its storytelling platform, ThisDay. By leveraging design-driven, creator-led content, Ekank strives to bring forgotten stories of historical and cultural significance to the forefront.

Mission and Vision

Ekank Technologies envisions transforming the way stories are told by providing creators with opportunities to share human-interest stories across history, art, culture, and heritage with a large audience base. The company seeks to revamp user interaction with historical content through engaging design, gamification, and storyteller incentivization.

Key Strategic Focus

Core Objectives

Content Accessibility: Making historical and cultural stories easily accessible to users across various demographics.

Creator Empowerment: Providing a platform for micro-influencers and content creators to share and monetize their stories.

Technological Enhancement: Utilizing design and gamification to enhance user engagement with non-fictional storytelling.

Primary Markets

Ekank targets users interested in history, art, culture, and heritage, with a significant presence in tier II and tier III cities across India, including Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Indore, Patna, Lucknow, and Nagpur.

Financials and Funding

Funding History

In January 2022, Ekank Technologies raised $1 million in seed funding from investors including 9Unicorns, Venture Catalysts, Titan Capital, Bharat Founders Fund Syndicate, and Sujeet Kumar (co-founder of Udaan).

Utilization of Capital

The funds are allocated towards strengthening technological capabilities, expanding the team, and inviting more storytellers across different media formats (text, audio, illustrations, and comics) to the platform.

Pipeline Development

Platform Growth

User Base: As of October 2022, ThisDay recorded 100 million unique users consuming stories, with a 300% year-on-year growth rate, increasing monthly active users from 5.5 million to 17.8 million.

Content Expansion: The platform hosts over 6,000 stories across 32 categories, including architecture, astronomy, culture, economy, literature, pop culture, sports, and entertainment.

Future Milestones

Language Expansion: Plans to add content in 12 more languages to cater to a diverse audience.

Audio Content: Building an audio portfolio with a target of over 100 hours of audio stories.

Creator Community: Aiming to onboard more visual storytellers, narrators, and writers across various languages to enhance collaboration and content diversity.

Technological Platform and Innovation

Proprietary Technologies

Ekank employs a combination of design, gamification, and storyteller incentivization to create an engaging user experience. The platform supports multiple content formats, including text, comics, illustrations, and audio, to cater to varied user preferences.

Scientific Methodologies

The platform utilizes a content graph to present stories in a coherent and accessible manner, enhancing user engagement and retention.

Leadership Team

Summit Nayak, Co-founder

With over seven years of experience in content, SaaS, mobile internet business development, sales, and team building, Summit has previously co-founded Staqu Technologies and Cube26 (acquired by Paytm).

Chetan Rexwal, Co-founder

Chetan brings nine years of technology and product experience in mobile internet, user growth optimization, and scaling AI. He co-founded Staqu Technologies and Cube26 alongside Summit.

Competitor Profile

Market Insights and Dynamics

The global digital content creation market is projected to reach $38.2 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 12%.

Competitor Analysis

While specific competitors are not detailed, Ekank operates in the digital content creation and storytelling space, competing with platforms that offer similar services in vernacular languages and cultural storytelling.

Strategic Collaborations and Partnerships

Ekank collaborates with brands and content creators to produce engaging stories. The company plans to explore licensing of content IP and other brand partnerships to diversify revenue streams.

Operational Insights

Revenue Model

Ekank's revenue model is advertisement-led, with creators receiving 40 to 60 percent of the ad revenue generated per story. The company is also exploring other models, including licensing of content IP and brand partnerships.

User Engagement

Users spend over 80 minutes per month consuming stories, indicating strong engagement with the platform's content.