Lokal App

Lokal, is an Indian hyperlocal news and content app catering to India’s non-English speakers. Most of the existing internet was developed for an English-speaking audience and that limits the scope of local news and lokal is trying to solve that problem. Started by Jani Pasha and Vipul Chaudhary in June 2018, Lokal provides district and constituency-level local news, jobs, classifieds and local information like weather, vegetable prices and contact information of doctors and police stations in Telugu and Tamil languages. It also provides awareness content as videos and make shows to flag fake news.

History
In the early days of a startup, the local news was sourced from stringers and distributed on a WhatsApp group. What started as a WhatsApp group initially became an app that provides people in far off village and constituencies a one-stop platform to have their say, to make unknown voices heard, to get a job, to list their ads, and to find a suitable match, among other services.

The hyperlocal startup works through a network of on-ground reporters, stringers, and on-ground sales teams. These reporters gather information in Telugu and Tamil about local news, job openings and classifieds.

Funding and investors
Lokal has raised their first funding from venture capital firm India Quotient in 2018. In 2019 Lokal raised $3 million from 3one4 Capital, Y Combinator, RB Investments and SOMA Capital. The organisation used the round of funding to scale further and better the current product based on user learnings from rural India.

Awards & Recognition

 * In April 2020, Forbes featured Lokal founders Jani Pasha and Vipul Chaudhary in its 30 Under 30 - Asia - Media, Marketing & Advertising list of young innovators.
 * In November 2020, Lokal was featured in Nasscom Emerge 50 awards 2020 under Bharat category as Trusted Hyperlocal Communitites for non-english speaking users of India