Times Internet acquires Cricbuzz.com

Cricbuzz will be merged with GoCricket to create the largest cricket news destination, reaching over 50 million monthly users on digital platforms.

Times Internet, the digital network of BCCL, has acquired a majority stake in Cricbuzz, a leading cricket news and information destination on the web and mobile. Interestingly, this move comes just months after the company launching a cricket portal called GoCricket.com in April.

Cricbuzz
will be merged with
GoCricket
to create the largest cricket news destination, reaching over 50 million monthly users on digital platforms. Founded in 2004 by Pankaj Chhaparwal, Piyush Agrawal and Pravin Hegde, Cricbuzz.com was started as a provider of ball-by-ball commentary for major cricket matches in the world. The portal now live streams various international matches along with commentary, and also develops its own content and with features, write-ups and up-to-date news from around the cricketing world.

Meanwhile, GoCricket has seen good traction since its launch, starting with live streaming of the Indian Premier League (IPL) across devices. GoCricket's popularity grew further with original content, including an exclusive partnership with Sourav Ganguly.

Times Internet hopes to leverage Cricbuzz's strong loyalty and expertise in the cricket domain, coupled with rich editorial content across text, photos, and videos, to build a great user experience around cricket. "We are thrilled to join Times Internet. Given their leadership in digital, this will be a tremendous boost towards scaling up the userbase and offering unparalleled cricket content to Cricbuzz consumers," says Pankaj Chhaparwal, CEO, CricBuzz.

Satyan Gajwani, CEO of Times Internet, says, "We are always looking for great businesses that will scale meaningfully in a mobile-first world. Despite being a startup, Cricbuzz has been a thriving, growing business with significant scale. In combination with the resources of GoCricket, we want to build a great cricket franchise to capitalise on the growing interest in India's favourite sport across mobile devices."

This is Times Internet's fifth acquisition this year, after having acquired Moneysights, CouponDunia, DineOut, and MusicFellas.