Private equity firm Tiger Global Management has fully exited Indian digital entertainment company The Viral Fever (TVF), creator of shows such as Kota Factory and Panchayat, in a transaction that valued the company at one-fourth of its 2019 peak valuation, three people close to the deal told Mint.
The private equity firm sold up to a 40% stake to investors, including Lighthouse India Fund-I, Frontier Globecap Ventures and LC Nueva Advisors LLP, in a round that valued the company at $22 million, down from $82 million in 2019.
The exit comes a decade after Tiger Global acquired a significant minority stake of roughly 25% in TVF's parent company, Contagious Online Media Network, through an initial $10 million investment in 2016, followed by subsequent funding injections up to 2019.
Mint reported at the time that TVF was valued at $61 million in February 2016.
TVF and Lighthouse Canton declined to comment. Mint's queries emailed to Tiger Global remained unanswered.
The transaction also comes as TVF announced three senior hires across its creative and corporate teams. The changes coincide with the departure of Shreyansh Pandey, head of TVF Originals, who is leaving after eleven years with the company to start an independent venture. Pandey is credited with TVF shows including Kota Factory, Aspirants, Gullak, and Cubicles.
This is when the over-the-top content industry has become more cautious about spending on original content as global platforms face pressure to improve profitability. At the same time, consolidation among streaming platforms and the emergence of new players have made commissioning decisions slower and more selective.
Over the past two years, platforms such as SonyLIV and JioHotstar have also scaled back their spending on web series after a period of heavy investment, Mint reported in 2024.
The slowdown has also coincided with rising competition among studios and production houses, all competing for a smaller pool of original-content budgets. As major streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video commission fewer shows, platforms such as TVF, which initially built their business around creating and licensing original shows to them, are feeling the heat.
Youtube success
TVF, founded in 2012 by Arunabh Kumar, last raised funding through a Series D round in 2019, with investors including Tiger Global Management, BlackSoil, StartX, Venture Highway, and Naseba. A venture debt round followed in 2021, led by BlackSoil.
TVF's revenue rose from ₹34.3 crore in 2020-21 to ₹182.4 crore in 2024-25. Net profit peaked at ₹68.3 crore in FY22, then declined to ₹13 crore in FY25, while the five-year compound annual growth rate remained positive at 17%, according to data from market intelligence platform Tracxn.
Tiger had first backed TVF after a string of successful web shows, particularly Kota Factory, a five-episode satirical comedy about students aspiring to enter the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology and the gruelling journey they undertake to get there.
The entertainment startup was also a darling of media and advertisers between 2015 and 2017, when its parody videos of Bollywood actors, news anchors, and everyday family situations on YouTube were hugely popular with the millennial audience.
TVF started out solely as a YouTube channel, competing with the likes of AIB and East India Comedy, producing comic sketches. It later started producing web shows cutting across genres such as drama and comedy, and spun off its productions to its TVF Play app as well. TVF's YouTube channel currently has more than six million subscribers.
Kumar resigned in 2017 following a sexual harassment complaint from a former employee. A court acquitted Kumar, citing an unexplained delay in filing the complaint.