News Corp decides to acquire India's BigDecisions.com

News Corp announced that it has acquired BigDecisions.com in India. BigDecisions.com aims to help Indian consumers make smarter financial decisions through interactive, decision-making tools powered by sophisticated algorithms and data. Its mission is to provide a platform to deliver unbiased information and analysis to consumers on topics ranging from life and health insurance and retirement planning to providing for a child’s education or buying and renting real estate.

“Our latest investment builds on our abiding belief that a digital India needs more trusted, reliable and independent data,” said Robert Thomson, Chief Executive of News Corp. “BigDecisions.com will help Indians make the most important decisions by using accurate information tailored to their personal needs. This platform will be high quality, privacy-protected and easy-to-use.”

The acquisition of BigDecisions.com includes the site’s parent company, FinDirect Services Pvt Ltd.

News Corp’s investment follows its announcement in November that it had acquired a 25% stake in PropTiger.com, a leading residential real estate platform that also provides accurate and independent data and information to India’s homebuyers. News Corp’s other operations in India include Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, Factiva and HarperCollins Publishers businesses.

Started in early 2013 by Manish Shah and Gaurav Roy, and operating until recently as bigdecisions.in, the BigDecisions.com platform has already helped some 40,000 users make better-informed decisions. Following the acquisition, both co-founders will help oversee a significant expansion of the Mumbai-based BigDecisions.com team as well as its consumer offerings. They will report to Raju Narisetti, News Corp Senior Vice President, Strategy.

Shah, an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, spent a decade with Citigroup in India and the US, in a wide range of roles in the unsecured lending, wealth management and mortgage businesses. In his last role, he was head of new initiatives with AEGON Religare Life Insurance. Mr Roy is an alumnus of IIT Bombay and XLRI Jamshedpur, with diverse experience across management consulting, financial services and technology. He has worked at Arthur Andersen, KPMG, Wipro, Bharti AXA, and AEGON Religare.