Popular video-on-demand and OTT streaming service The Viral Fever aka TVF, which is credited for launching India’s first and critically acclaimed web-series ‘Permanent Roommates’ back in the year 2014, has reportedly raised a significant amount of $2 million equivalent to around Rs.14.8 crores in debt, by the Mumbai-based venture debt firm called BlackSoil.
The streaming service will use this amount for the working capital required for developing web-series and other content for its clients that include both brands and OTT platforms. This is not the first business association between TVF and BlackSoil as previously, in the year 2019 too, the latter had provided venture debt to OTT player TVF. Prior to that, TVF had raised a massive $10 million from investment firm Tiger Global in the year 2016.
Regarding the aforementioned debt raise, TVF President Vijay Koshy had stated that “We have a great pipeline of shows for the next couple of years to meet the increasing demand of quality content from the audiences. This debt raise is going to help us deliver this pipeline and fully take advantage of the OTT boom. We are extremely excited to renew our partnership with BlackSoil”.
Besides ‘Permanent Roommates’, TVF boasts of an impressive OTT portfolio. The list of the widely admired web-series includes the start-up company drama ‘TVF Pitchers’ (2015), teenage rom-com ‘Flames’ (2018), the 90s based family drama ‘Yeh Meri Family’ (2018), cult IIT-exam based show ‘Kota Factory’ (2019), slice-of-life drama ‘Gullak’ (2019), village-based comedy-drama ‘Panchayat’ (2020), and the highly-rated UPSC exam-based series ‘TVF Aspirants’ (2021), amongst other web-series.
Many of the above-mentioned shows developed by TVF have been included in the IMDb top-rated shows list. In fact, the Naveen Kasturia starrer ‘Aspirants’ is the only Indian show from 2021 which have made it to the coveted IMDb list and even outranked the Kate Winslet starrer acclaimed HBO series ‘Mare of Easttown’.
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