Founded | 2016 |
---|---|
Founders | Rohin Dharmakumar, Seema Singh, Sumanth Raghavendra and Ashish Mishra |
Headquarters | , India |
Website | the-ken |
The Ken is an Indian business news website based out of Bangalore, India. [1] [2] [3] [4] It was launched in 2016 as a premium subscriber-only platform that publishes one article per day. [5] [6] [7] Its founders include Rohin Dharmakumar, Seema Singh, Sumanth Raghavendra and Ashish Mishra. PayTM founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor. [8]
As of September 2021, it had over 30,000 individual subscribers and over 150 corporate subscribers. [9]
The Ken was launched by Rohin Dharmakumar, Seema Singh, Sumanth Raghavendra and Ashish Mishra in 2016 as a premium subscriber only platform. [5]
Till 2018, the website raised ₹4.46 crore (US$530,000) and in 2018, it raised ₹10.32 crore (US$1.2 million) from several investors including the Omidyar Network. [10] [11] [12] It later said it had raised a further $1.9 million between the two rounds. [13] In August 2023, it closed a ₹16 crore ($2 million) Series B round of funding from two new investors, Rainmatter Capital and Baskar Subramanian, in a mixed round consisting of primary and secondary investments by both. [13]
From 2019 to 2022, The Ken and another business news website, The Morning Context, were involved in lawsuits against one another. In 2019, Ashish Mishra left The Ken and started a rival online publication called The Morning Context. [14] The Ken then filed a lawsuit against Mishra alleging unauthorised use of confidential information which it alleged was used to "set up and operate" The Morning Context . Following this The Morning Context filed a defamation suit against The Ken alleging “false, derogatory & slanderous public statements amounting to defamation”. The Ken responded to the notice by "categorically rejecting" the claims made in it. [15] Later, The Ken withdrew its lawsuit against The Morning Context, Ashish Mishra and others on 24 May 2022. [16]
The Ken publishes articles that focus on Indian business, healthcare and other similar topics. In 2019, The Ken expanded to Southeast Asia by launching a Southeast Asia Edition which is also run as subscriber-only platform that publishes one article per day. [17] In 2021, The Ken started a "business newsletter bundle" named “The Stack” that publishes newsletters that focus on specific sectors like Climate Technology, Financial Technology and Personal Finance among others. [18] Additionally, in 2021 the Ken also started its first podcast, "Unofficial Sources" (since discontinued), which was followed by two more podcasts: "First Principles" and "Cost to Company". [19] In late 2022, The Ken launched its third podcast "Daybreak" that aimed to provide business news in less than 15 minutes. [20]
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