MAM
Khazanah Nasional Berhad invests $42 mn into Wow! Momo
Mumbai: Wow! Momo Foods, the operator of Wow! Momo, Wow! China and Wow! Chicken has raised over Rs 350 crores from Khazanah Nasional Berhad (“Khazanah”), the sovereign wealth fund of Malaysia. The investment will be made through both primary infusion and secondary purchase from early-stage investors, the Indian Angel Network (“IAN”) and Lighthouse Funds.
In addition, the company’s existing investor, OAKS Asset Management, has also infused INR 60 crores of additional funding into Wow! Momo Foods.
Commenting on the announcement, Wow! Momo Foods CEO and co-founder Sagar Daryani said, “There is no greater joy for a founder than giving its initial investors (Indian Angel Network (IAN) and Lighthouse Funds) great partial exits. For us, the Bharat Story has just begun with a huge headway of growth. With Khazanah’s investment into the business and their long-term approach, we will strive to become the powerhouse of innovation and transformation in the food space while keeping a strong balance between sustainability, growth and backing breakthroughs”.
Khazanah MD Dato’ Amirul Feisal Wan Zahir said, “We are excited to be on the journey with Wow! Momo in their mission to build the largest QSR brand in India. We aim to encourage the growth of Wow! Momo through enhanced scalability, technological fortification, and focusing on building a strong back-end capability to support its growth.”
OAKS Asset Management founder and CEO Vishal Ootam said, “In our journey with investments in other F&B brands, we have realised that long-term thinking and dynamic leadership are essential. We feel that Wow! Momo has both. We feel that Wow! Momo will not only gain dominance in the domestic market but also be the first globalized QSR company from India. We are ready to scale with the brand.”
Launched in August 2008, Wow! Momo Foods is a multi-billion-rupee quick service restaurant (QSR) chain with more than 630 outlets in over 35 cities. It has a robust expansion plan of over 200 outlets in the coming fiscal year and steadfast growth of its FMCG business.
The primary fund will fuel the growth and expansion of the quick service restaurant (QSR) brand and help to strengthen the distribution foothold and research and development (R&D) for the FMCG arm. The entire round is a testimony to the brand’s vision, scalability, and rigor on profitability.
Wow! Momo, together with Wow! China and Wow! Chicken’s aim is to enter more than 100 cities and look at a footprint of over 1500 stores in the next three years. The brand is also expanding across various touchpoints in FMCG with over 1200 retail outlet presence across more than 50 cities in modern trade and quick commerce with its ready-to-eat momos and along with new path-breaking product launches lined-up in the coming fiscal year.
In the transaction, Investec acted as the financial advisors to Wow! Momo. With this latest round; Wow! Momo Foods has bought back Indian QSR to the map of formidable, & scalable businesses. Hunger for growth, strong muscle of right people and most importantly sustained control over unit economics is what makes Wow! Momo story a delectable portion of real growth story. Made in India; made by India.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
