iWorld
Damroo secures funding from Marwari Catalysts and Dr. Kumar Vishvas.
Mumbai: India’s first regional and independent music streaming platform Damroo has announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount in seed round funding. The round was led by a host of marquee investors, including Marwari Catalysts, one of India’s fastest-growing startup accelerators, and popular poet-litterateur Dr. Kumar Vishvas. The early-funding round also saw the participation of revered Jagadguru Nimbarkacharya Shriji Maharaj, along with corporate leaders Umed Singh Rao and Ratnawali Singh. The company has declared that it envisions leveraging the fresh capital towards Platform upgradation & performance, branding & promotion, user acquisition & retention, content creation and team building & structuring.
“Despite the entertainment and music industries scaling fresh heights, there is a persistent struggle among independent talents in our country. While they are deprived of a level-playing field due to streaming giants’ populist approach, the regional audience too, which is buzzing with aspirations and resources, remains very poorly served. In other words, as I always say -the richest Bharat is poorly served, and we are here to fill this void. We are encouraged by the faith shown in Damroo by all investors” said Damroo founder and MD Ram Mishra.
Sushil Sharma, founder of Marwari Catalysts, a startup accelerator with over 60 portfolio startups, added, “We have been instrumental in the growth of the country’s D2C space by strengthening startups with products built by Bharat, for Bharat. We relate with Damroo’s ethos to cater specifically to artists, audiences, and brands/businesses alike in the regional and vernacular space. Ram’s diverse and rich experience of 20 years in the Indian music industry further ticks the critical founder-business fit aspect. Furthermore, this investment is a manifestation of our undeterred zeal to support homegrown brands amid the prevailing competitive scenario.”
Noted poet, author, and litterateur Dr. Kumar Vishvas also spoke on the occasion, highlighting the need to promote and support talent at the grassroots. “India has always been identified as a culturally vibrant land that is home to innumerable great artists. No matter which part of the country you hail from, no matter what your mother tongue is, music is probably in the blood of every Indian. It is a matter of enormous satisfaction to back a platform where regional artists, music lovers, and localised businesses across linguistic boundaries get access to exactly what they seek.”
Damroo intends to foster a 360-degree ecosystem for regional & independent artists, wherein they can earn, grow and own the copyright of their music in a most transparent environment. Home to diverse musical genres, including folk, classical, devotional, contemporary, etc, Damroo India is also functional in the domain of Sync License Rights. With the regional music industry currently holding over 40 per cent of the Indian music market share, Damroo has swiftly emerged as a game changer for scores of talented artists and localised businesses in the remotest parts of the country.
iWorld
WhatsApp may soon let users to pick who sees their status updates
The messaging giant is borrowing a page from Instagram’s playbook as it pushes to give users finer control over their social circles.
CALIFORNIA: WhatsApp is quietly working on a feature that could make its Status function considerably smarter and considerably more private.
According to reports from beta tracking platforms, the app is testing a tool called Status lists, which would allow users to create named groups such as close friends, family and colleagues, and control precisely which group sees each update. It is a meaningful step up from the platform’s current blunt instruments, which offer only three options: share with all contacts, exclude specific people, or manually select individuals each time.
The new feature draws an obvious comparison with Instagram’s Close Friends function, and the resemblance is unlikely to be accidental. Both platforms sit within Meta’s family, and the company has been nudging them toward a common logic of audience segmentation for some time.
The move also fits neatly into WhatsApp’s broader privacy push. The platform has been rolling out enhanced chat protections and is exploring the introduction of usernames, which would allow users to connect without exchanging phone numbers. Status lists extend that philosophy from messaging into broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Status itself has been evolving well beyond its origins as a simple photo-and-text slideshow. The feature now supports music stickers, collages, longer videos and interactive elements, pushing it closer to the social-media-style story format pioneered by Snapchat and refined by Instagram. In that context, finer audience controls are not merely a privacy feature. They are a precondition for people sharing more.
The feature remains in development and has not been confirmed for release. WhatsApp routinely tests tools that are later modified or quietly shelved. But the direction of travel is clear: the app wants Status to be a destination, not an afterthought. Letting users decide exactly who is in the audience is how it gets there.
