Meta reportedly investing in Indian startup Better Opinions

Facebook-parent Meta, which counts India as its largest market by users, is gearing up to make its third startup investment in the South Asian market.

The American social media group, which invested in social commerce Meesho in 2019 and online learning platform Unacademy in 2020, is in talks to back the early-stage startup Better Opinions, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

The deliberations are ongoing and the deal is yet to close, sources cautioned, requesting anonymity as the details are private. Meta did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.

Better Opinions is raising up to $3 million at a valuation below $25 million, two sources said. Meta is in talks to participate in the round, the sources added. If the talks materialize into a deal, it will be the first time Meta takes stake in a seed-stage Indian startup.

Samay Jain, co-founder of Better Opinions, told TechCrunch in an emailed response that the startup has raised $2.5 million seed funding from a number of investors including Metaplanet VC, YCombinator, Taurus VC, Original Capital, Tremis Capital, Goodwater Capital and Super Capital. He declined to comment on the startup’s deliberations with Meta.

Founded last year by GoJek alums Jain and Soumyajit Das, Better Opinions is building what it has described to investors as “the prediction market” for India. The eponymous app allows individuals to trade their opinions on everyday topics and win real cash based on how good those predictions turned out.

These everyday topics include predicting the price of a cryptocurrency token at a specific future time, box office collection of new titles and views a YouTube will be able to garner during a specific period. TechCrunch