CIO Angel Network invests in Delhi-based PayTunes

Sanjay Mehta and Anoop Mathur led CIO's investment into the company

CIO Angel Network (CAN) today announced investment in Delhi-based PayTunes, a mobile advertising platform on Android that helps brands reach their mobile consumers through audio ads. Both the network and the company did not disclose the investment details.

Sanjay Mehta and Anoop Mathur have led the round with other members from CAN.

Founded by Divya Pratap Singh, Rakesh Sehgal and Gaurav Tiwari, the PayTunes app, which is available on Play Store, replaces the ringtones of user mobiles with ad-jingles from brands and in return, it incentivises users in terms of reward points on every incoming call. Users can later redeem their collected rewards through free recharges and bill payments, according to a release

Singh and Sehgal were batchmates from IIT Delhi, while Tiwari comes with an experience in business development across domains of FMCG and IT.

Quoting a a recent e-marketer's report, the company said, digital advertising spend in India is $0.94 billion out of which mobile advertising spend is $0.17 billion (18% of digital advertising expenditure). By 2019, the digital ad spend is expected to grow to $ 2.17 billion out of which mobile is expected to contribute $1.23 billion.

"Mobile advertising is currently the hottest area in Advertising industry and brands are looking at newer innovative ways to reach the mobiles of their consumers. Most of the digital advertising avenues have for long focused only on in-app and website banner ads. This audio based ad delivery model is disruptive and holds global potential," said Sanjay Mehta, lead investor in PayTunes.

PayTunes has opened up to an initial response from users clocking in more than 10,000 users in just 14 days of its launch. The company aims to reach a user base of 100,000 consumers by the year end.