Brief History

Raghav Bahl graduated from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, with a BA in economics and went on to gain an MBA at the University of Delhi. He became interested in the news at university, but started his first job as a management consultant at an accountancy firm. 

Bahl left the firm to become a TV anchor. He was first employed for the public service broadcaster, Doordarshan, and then for the India Today Group in 1987, where he worked on India’s first monthly video news magazine.

In 1993, he founded Network18 Group with Arun Nanda. The company started out as a cable television operator but later expanded into other areas, such as news broadcasting, publishing, and digital media. 

Bahl was also the controlling shareholder and managing director of Network18 Group. Under Bahl’s leadership, Network18 Group has grown into one of the largest media conglomerates in India. During his 20-years at Network18, Bahl managed partnerships with CNBC, Viacom, BBC, Star TV, A&E, Time Warner, Forbes and other leading media brands. The company now boasts over 35 TV channels, 13 websites, a portfolio of niche magazines, and a movie-production company. The company’s flagship channels include CNN-News18, CNBC-TV18, and NDTV.

In 2014, Bahl co-founded Quintillion Media Pvt Ltd with his wife Ritu Kapur – a citizen journalist and media entrepreneur. The company is the publisher of The Quint, an English and Hindi language news website. The Quint is known for its fearless reporting and its commitment to fact-checking – priding itself on a “fearless newsroom” culture that exposes fake news. Bahl also serves as its Editor-in-Chief.

Bahl went on to join forces with Bloomberg, in 2016, to establish the business and financial news organization, BQ Prime, formerly known as BloombergQuint.

He is passionate about news, economic policy, corporate issues, and geopolitics, especially India-China-America relations.

Remarkable Investments

Bahl is a serial entrepreneur and investor. In 2015 he invested 3.3M USD as the sole angel investor in Quintype Technologies Pvt Ltd. Quintype is a digital newsroom growth platform that allows publishers to create, distribute, and monetize their content.

He invested over 14MUSD n in March and April 2019 in The Quint, his flagship news website, and other digital media properties, followed by an additional 7.2M USD in June, as the first of three equal tranches. 

He has also invested in Inclov, the world’s first matchmaking app exclusively for people with disabilities and health disorders. He led the first seed round in June 2016 with a 150K USD investment, then put in another 320K USD a year later.

Raghav has also seeded moneycontrol.com, bookmyshow.com, firstpost.com, yatra.com, and others.

In The News

Raghav sold a 49% stake in Quintillion Media to billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani, for 5.8M USD in June 2023. Adani is chairman of the Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate involved in developing and operating ports, with interests in power, renewables, gas distribution, logistics, and real estate. Adani bought the Quintillian stake through his publishing, advertising, and broadcasting company, AMG Media Networks.

Bahl is a recipient of several awards, including the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian award. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders community.