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Shekhar Kapur and AR Rahman launch social media platform
MUMBAI: Shekhar Kapur and AR Rahman have teamed up to launch social media platform Qyuki Digital Media, which has Cisco as a key investor.
The platform aims to discover the vast untapped talent of India and the Indian diaspora, mentor them, and turn them into brands of the future. It will offer co-creation opportunities, collaboration, recognition and a creative marketplace to the consumers.
Qyuki will help the youth to experience and co-create differentiated content with the experts and be inspired by the ‘Masters‘ creations.
Qyuki co-founder Shekhar Kapur said, "At Qyuki, we are creating a world of opportunity, where it doesn’t matter where you come from, but what matters is your creativity and the meaning one can derive from it. It’s a world where people can learn from established domain experts, showcase their creativity and connect with like-minded people. Ultimately, they have the potential to become the brands of the future. This is a hub where I will create compelling content experiences such as Warlord and Animalocity."
Qyuki co-founder AR Rahman said, “Qyuki will help you creatively explore yourself, open the window for creativity that exists in all corners of India and is a first step to trigger the imagination of Indian minds. Qyuki would be active and focussed in driving creative expression of all art forms. The platform will emerge as a strong medium that will enable Indian youth to follow their creative instinct. Melange, premiered at Qyuki, is content created by young musicians at K M Music Conservatory which showcases the potential of creativity in India.”
Qyuki’s technology platform has been developed in-house to bring to the consumer a unique multi-modal experience deployed on Cisco’s state-of-the-art datacentre technology. The entire Qyuki platform is built on Cisco’s cloud infrastructure.
Hilton Romanski, Vice President, Head of Corporate Business Development, Cisco said, “Cisco has a long track record of driving IT market growth through investments. We have invested in Qyuki to co-create a technology platform that enables conceptualization of creative content, contextualising it and delivering it through mobile devices and cloud. With Cisco, Qyuki has the capability to build an online human network in India.”
Qyuki will enable brands to leverage the creative community in many different ways. It will allow brands to reach out to a targeted community, interacting with content and co-create brand communication with them, directly or through online and mobile advertising. It also provides them with a chance to gauge the emotional pulse of the consumer or associate with specific genre of creativity.
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
