Startup Deep Dive : Public App — how Inshorts revalued its local-video bet fourfold while group losses topped Rs 750 crore

In ten months across 2020 and 2021, the company behind Public App watched its paper value climb from roughly $125 million to about $550 million, tripling on the strength of a hyperlocal social network that most of its own investors had never used. In that same stretch, and the two financial years that followed, the group that runs Public bled more than ₹750 crore in cumulative losses. The valuation was a bet on reach; the accounts were a record of what reach costs.

Public App is the second act of Inshorts, the 60-word news app that three engineering-college dropouts built in 2013. When the news app plateaued, its founders pivoted the money and attention into a location-based video network for India’s non-English internet. This deep dive traces what Public actually sells, who paid for it, how the group earns, and the one number the company has consistently declined to publish: how much of the revenue is Public’s at all.

Quick facts

What Public App does

Public App is a location-based social network that connects a user to people and information in their immediate vicinity: their neighbourhood, town or district. It leans on short local-news videos, civic updates and utility content, and it is built for India’s non-English speakers, running in Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Assamese, Gujarati and Marathi (TechCrunch, July 2021). Alongside the feed, the app has positioned itself as a place for local commerce, classifieds, recruiting and reaching neighbourhood audiences, with elected officials and government authorities among its users (TechCrunch, March 2021). It sits inside the Inshorts group, which also runs the 60-word English news app that gave the company its name.

The origin

Inshorts began in 2013 as a news venture built by three founders from India’s engineering colleges, with Azhar Iqubal an IIT dropout who went on to lead the company for over a decade (Wikipedia). The founding insight was narrow and correct: most people did not want to read a full article, they wanted the gist. Inshorts compressed news into 60-word cards, and it worked as a habit for English-reading, smartphone-first Indians. But a good reading habit is not the same as a good business, and the ceiling on that audience became the founding problem for what came next.

The second insight was about who was not being served. India’s larger, faster-growing internet population reads in Indian languages and lives in towns and districts that national media rarely covers at street level. Public App was the answer the founders built for that gap: not another national news feed, but a network organised around where you physically are. Launched in 2020, it reframed Inshorts from a news publisher into a platform company, and it is the reason investors were willing to underwrite a valuation the news app alone could never have justified.

The struggle years

The hard truth running underneath Public’s rise is that news, on its own, did not excite investors, and the group has never turned a profit in the years for which filings are public. The English news app is widely reported to have plateaued near 10 million users while Public became the growth story the company sold to the market (Exchange4media, July 2021). The pivot bought scale, but it did not buy discipline. In FY22 the group posted a net loss of about ₹232 crore on operating revenue of roughly ₹166 crore; in FY23 the loss widened to about ₹310 crore even as revenue crept up to ₹181 crore (Entrackr, November 2023).

The FY23 unit economics tell the story without adjectives: the company spent about ₹2.72 to earn a single rupee that year, with total expenses of roughly ₹492 crore against ₹181 crore of revenue (Entrackr, November 2023). Growth was being rented, not owned. And through all of it the group declined to break out how much money Public itself generated, folding it into consolidated accounts that reported only the combined picture. For a company whose entire fundraising thesis rested on Public, that silence is the defining struggle of these years.

The turning point

The turning point was not a product launch but a revaluation, and it happened in under a year. In September 2020, a round of about $35 million led by Lee Fixel’s Addition valued the company at roughly $125 million (TechCrunch, July 2021). In March 2021, A91 Partners led about $41 million and the valuation more than doubled to over $250 million (TechCrunch, March 2021). By July 2021, Vy Capital led a $60 million round and the number reached about $550 million (TechCrunch, July 2021; Exchange4media, July 2021).

On one side of that ten-month window sat a company worth about $125 million with a news app and a young social product. On the other sat a company worth roughly four times as much, with Public claimed at tens of millions of users and a shareholder register full of crossover funds. What changed was not the profit line, which stayed deeply negative, but the story: Public had become the asset, and Inshorts the wrapper around it. Every later question about the company, including whether that valuation still holds, dates back to this repricing.

The money behind it

The group’s disclosed capital came in a tight cluster of rounds in 2020 and 2021, most of it raised on Public’s momentum:

• September 2020: about $35 million led by Addition (Lee Fixel), valuing the company near $125 million (TechCrunch, July 2021).
• March 2021: about $41 million led by A91 Partners, with Addition, SIG and Tanglin Venture Partners, at a valuation above $250 million (TechCrunch, March 2021).
• July 2021: about $60 million led by Vy Capital, with Addition, Tiger Global, SIG, A91 and Tanglin participating, at about $550 million (TechCrunch, July 2021).
• Round breakdown of the July 2021 raise, per share allotments: Vy Capital $35 million, Addition $12.5 million, SIG $7.5 million, A91 $2.5 million, Tanglin $1.5 million (Entrackr, August 2021).

What each backer changed is visible in the cap table after July 2021 (Entrackr, August 2021):

• Addition held about 29.1%, the largest single stake, having anchored the company from the 2020 round onward.
• SIG held about 18.4% and Tiger Global about 17.4%, giving two US crossover funds a combined third of the company.
• A91 Partners held about 11.7% after leading the March 2021 round.
• Vy Capital held about 9.0% as the newest lead.
• The three co-founders together held under 6%, with a small secondary buyback of about $7.34 million letting early investors and founders take some cash off the table.

The three verified rounds sum to roughly $136 million raised in 2020–2021 (TechCrunch, March and July 2021). The last reported valuation is contested: Entrackr’s analysis of the July 2021 allotments put the post-money figure between about $450 million and $470 million (Entrackr, August 2021), while TechCrunch and Exchange4media reported it at about $550 million (TechCrunch, July 2021; Exchange4media, July 2021). No fresh priced round has been publicly reported since, so July 2021 remains the last time the market put a number on the company.

How it makes money

The engine is advertising. In FY23, advertising was about ₹147 crore of the group’s roughly ₹181 crore in operating revenue, with the remainder coming from support and other services (Entrackr, November 2023). The commercial logic runs like this:

• Money in: brands and, in principle, local businesses pay to reach an audience the platform can slice by language and location; advertising was about 81% of FY23 revenue (Entrackr, November 2023).
• Costs out: the two largest recurring lines are marketing to acquire users and salaries to build product. In FY23 the group ran total expenses of about ₹492 crore, including support service fees of about ₹193 crore and employee benefits of about ₹79 crore (Entrackr, November 2023).
• Where the margin sits: nowhere yet. The FY23 figure of about ₹2.72 spent per rupee earned shows the model was carried by capital, not cash flow (Entrackr, November 2023).
• The part people get wrong: Public looks like a consumer-commerce or classifieds play from its marketing, but the disclosed revenue is overwhelmingly advertising. Any take rate on local commerce or recruiting has not been separately published, so it cannot be verified here.

The numbers

These are consolidated group figures for the entity that runs both Inshorts and Public; the company has not published a standalone revenue figure for Public App (Entrackr, November 2023). All values are in ₹ crore. The FY24 revenue of ₹181 crore is about $18.9 million at the reference rate.

The pattern across three years is a company that stopped growing revenue and chose to shrink its losses instead:

• Revenue was essentially flat between FY23 and FY24, rising about 0.3% from ₹180.9 crore to ₹181.4 crore (Inc42, FY24 results).
• Net loss fell about 26% in FY24 to roughly ₹228 crore from about ₹310 crore in FY23 (Inc42, FY24 results).
• The improvement came from cutting spend, not selling more: advertising and promotional expenses dropped about 65% to roughly ₹47 crore in FY24 from about ₹135 crore in FY23 (Inc42, FY24 results).
• Total expenditure fell about 16% to about ₹411 crore in FY24 (Inc42, FY24 results).
• Employee benefit costs still rose, to about ₹90 crore in FY24 from about ₹79 crore in FY23 (Inc42, FY24 results).
• Cumulative losses across FY22 to FY24 total roughly ₹770 crore, the payoff to the hook above (Entrackr, November 2023; Inc42, FY24 results).

Where the money comes from

The revenue split is where Public becomes hard to read, because the split the market most wants does not exist in public filings:

• By line item: advertising was about ₹147 crore of roughly ₹181 crore in FY23, with support and other services making up the rest (Entrackr, November 2023).
• By product: the group has not disclosed how much revenue comes from Public App versus the Inshorts news app; the accounts are consolidated (Entrackr, November 2023).
• By users, as claimed: Public was described as having in the range of 50 to 60 million users in 2021, alongside about 10 million on the Inshorts app (TechCrunch, July 2021; Exchange4media, July 2021). These are company-stated figures, not independently audited, and no updated count has been reported since.

The surprise sits in that gap. A network that raised more than $130 million on a hyperlocal, non-English, tens-of-millions-of-users story reports revenue that is mostly advertising and never once isolated for the product the whole thesis was built on. The audience is Public’s; the disclosed money is the group’s.

The risks

These are concrete, mechanism-level risks grounded in the disclosed numbers:

• Growth-versus-survival trade-off. FY24 losses shrank only because advertising spend was cut about 65%, and revenue went flat as a result (Inc42, FY24 results). The lever that reduces losses is the same lever that stalls growth, which is a hard place to raise the next round from.
• Advertising concentration. About 81% of FY23 revenue was advertising (Entrackr, November 2023). A single revenue line tied to marketing budgets is exposed to ad-market cycles, and no diversified commerce or subscription revenue has been separately disclosed.
• A valuation that has not been retested. The last priced round was July 2021 at a contested $450–550 million (Entrackr, August 2021; TechCrunch, July 2021). With cumulative losses near ₹770 crore since and no reported new round, the mark is stale and a future raise could reprice it downward.
• Disclosure opacity. The refusal to break out Public’s own revenue (Entrackr, November 2023) makes it impossible for an outsider to judge whether the core product is monetising, which itself raises the cost of the next fundraise.

The takeaway

The transferable lesson from Public App is about what a valuation actually prices. Between 2020 and 2021 this company was repriced roughly four times over, from about $125 million to around $550 million, not because its profits changed but because its story did: from a news publisher to a platform for India’s local, non-English internet. That is a legitimate way for value to move, and the founders executed the narrative shift well. But a narrative sets the ceiling, and unit economics set the floor, and the two have to eventually meet. By FY24 the company was managing the floor, cutting spend and losses while revenue stood still. The open question for any builder to sit with is the one Public’s own filings keep unanswered: when the growth story quiets down, can the thing you actually sell pay for itself?

Frequently asked questions

What is Public App and who owns it?

Public App is a location-based, hyperlocal social network focused on local news and short video for India’s non-English speakers. It is operated by the Inshorts group, the same company behind the Inshorts 60-word news app, whose largest shareholders after the July 2021 round were Addition, SIG, Tiger Global, A91 Partners and Vy Capital (Entrackr, August 2021).

Who founded Public App?

Public App was built by the founders of Inshorts, which started in 2013: Azhar Iqubal, Anunay Pandey and Deepit Purkayastha (Wikipedia). Azhar Iqubal, an IIT dropout, led the company for over a decade; Deepit Purkayastha is now CEO and Iqubal is Chairman.

How much money has the company raised and at what valuation?

The disclosed rounds total roughly $136 million: about $35 million in September 2020, about $41 million in March 2021 and about $60 million in July 2021 (TechCrunch, March and July 2021). The last reported valuation was about $450–550 million in July 2021 (Entrackr, August 2021; TechCrunch, July 2021).

Is Public App profitable?

No. The group reported net losses of about ₹232 crore in FY22, ₹310 crore in FY23 and ₹228 crore in FY24 (Entrackr, November 2023; Inc42, FY24 results). Losses narrowed in FY24 mainly because advertising spend was cut about 65%.

How much revenue does Public App itself make?

That figure is not public. The company reports consolidated group revenue, about ₹181 crore in FY24, and has not broken out how much comes from Public App versus the Inshorts news app (Entrackr, November 2023; Inc42, FY24 results).

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• TechCrunch, March 2021 — Public App raises $41 million led by A91 Partners; valuation and user claims.
• TechCrunch, July 2021 — Inshorts raises $60 million led by Vy Capital; valuation, user claims and product description.
• Exchange4media, July 2021 — $60 million round, ~$550 million valuation and user figures.
• Entrackr, August 2021 — round breakdown, shareholding structure and post-money valuation estimate.
• Entrackr, November 2023 — FY23 and FY22 revenue, losses, expenses and advertising split.
• Inc42, FY24 results (2025) — FY24 revenue, net loss, EBITDA, advertising and employee costs; Inc42 Inshorts financials page, accessed September 2026.
• Wikipedia (Inshorts), accessed September 2026 — founders, founding year and Public App launch year.

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