MUMBAI: “It’s actually a no brainer. If you have to reinvent, you have to simply start from scratch,” said Raghav Bahl as he introduced the team behind his latest venture- The Quint.
The man is gearing for his newest venture. After their stint with television, Bahl along with Ritu Kapur has, co founded their digital company called Quintillion Media. The name has been derived from the Quintillion (Kwin-til-yuh-n), which means the numerical one followed by 18 zeroes.
The company was registered on 23 August, last year, bearing the registration number 270795 with an authorised capital of Rs 130 crore. It invested in a start up called Quintype, based in the San Francisco Bay Area with entrepreneur Amit Rathore as CEO and chief product officer. At Quintype, Bahl is the chief strategist and board member while Kapur is the chief customer looking after the product and also a board member.
In a video released on Facebook, the media mogul is seen introducing Quintillion’s first digital baby, which will be a mobile-first, algorithmic digital hand held news service named www.thequint.com.
The office is based at Noida’s Film City just a few buildings away from that of Network18.
Going by Indian tradition, not surprisingly an auspicious ‘pooja’ was performed in November, last year, as the startup is gearing to soar high. The content will be high on visual and imagery and crisper with the text. It will not be limited to news but also cover genres like technology, health among others. The aim of the platform is to ‘be the signal over the noise’. The current logo is that of the alphabet ‘Q’ in white and purple over a canary yellow background. On Facebook, it currently has 579 likes since its launch on 9 January.
Giving his views on social media, Bahl wrote on Facebook, “Social media, especially Google and Facebook, are an independent journalist’s best friends, giving his piece a viral velocity impossible within the linear confines of newspapers and TV”
All in all, it remains to be seen how this reinvention takes form as it gears to take over competitors like Scroll, Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post India.
