AI-Based Writing Assistant Instoried Gets Seed Funding From Venture Catalysts

Bengaluru-based deeptech startup Instoried has raised $500K in a seed funding round from Venture Catalysts.

The funds will be used to expand into multiple languages and reach a global audience. Prior to this round, the company has been part of cohorts of Axilor Ventures, Avishkar Deeptech accelerator, IIIT-H foundation and Google Developers Launchpad among others.

Founded in 2018 by Sharmin Ali and Sutanshu Raj, Instoried provides end-to-end solutions to content marketers, helping them target a particular emotions based on its identification of the brand’s emotional quotient. With this, the tool can give tailor-made recommendations of words and phrases.

Instoried has launched a web app and sells licences of the tool for multiple language users. It is currently available in English and Hindi, but will expand to cover a larger set of vernacular languages in the foreseeable future.

Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, president and cofounder, Venture Catalysts said, “With a total addressable market size of $300 Bn, the deeptech market for content, in particular, holds great potential. We have faith in the ability of Instoried’s highly accurate tool to disrupt and lead the market with their unique approach of targeting and catering to specific customer emotions.”

With about 100K users, Instoried is adopted by content marketers in BFSI, FMCG and the Travel industries. Sharmin Ali, cofounder and CEO, Instoried said, “This is the best time to build a product that not only analyses vernacular content but also gives smart recommendations to make it emotionally engaging. We already have the product live in English. Now we aim to target the next billion internet users in India by going vernacular.”

Yuki Kawamura, principal, head of India investments, Akatsuki Entertainment Technology Fund had recently written that due to the affordability and advancement of technology and connectivity, there has been a massive increase in the number of internet users which has led to a demand in digital and regional content. “Startups in this domain are growing at a larger pace and investors are looking to back them up because they see huge potential in content focused businesses,” he added.

In a recent analysis, DataLabs by Inc42 noted that slow growth of India’s deeptech sector is primarily due to the lack of monitoring and regulation, which leads to poor or failed execution of the government schemes. Some of the other reasons include lack of high-skilled workforce, low-level readiness of the Indian public towards technology and more.

At the interception of deeptech and content is Instoried, which leverages deeptech to augment content with emotional capabilities. In a country like India where social media uproar over a misunderstood advertisement or content can create havoc for a company, can Instoried be a saviour?