MAM
Pepperfry appoints Anand Batra as the chief financial officer
Mumbai: The e-commerce furniture and home goods company, Pepperfry announced on Friday the appointment of Anand Batra as its chief financial officer (CFO). This is Batra’s second stint with Pepperfry, his first being a five-year stint during the early days of Pepperfry’s inception. In his role as CFO, Batra will spearhead the organisation’s corporate strategy, fundraising efforts, financial operations, legal and secretarial functions. His appointment is effective immediately and he will be based at the Pepperfry corporate office in Mumbai.
Batra is a seasoned finance professional with more than a decade of experience in venture capital, business management, financial planning and operations, fundraising, strategy, and investment banking.
Before joining Pepperfry, Batra worked as executive director at Z3Partners, a leading tech and digital fund, where he was involved with the fund’s investments in Dealshare, Shipsy, Gramophone and Cyfirma. Earlier, Batra was a principal in the investing team at IvyCap Ventures, focusing on early-stage investments in Indian consumer and technology-enabled businesses.
Before starting his career as an investor, Batra headed up category management for the home goods business at Pepperfry. During this stint, Batra transformed the home business unit economics while maintaining high levels of customer experience. Batra headed up the financial planning and strategy function at Pepperfry, where he led fundraising efforts, apart from helping shape the company’s omnichannel strategy and launching business categories.
A graduate of the London School of Economics and Narsee Monjee College, Mumbai, Batra started his career as an investment banker at Lazard and Avendus Capital in India.
Pepperfry co-founder & CEO Ambareesh Murty said, “We are thrilled to welcome Anand back home. His contributions during Pepperfry’s formative years were invaluable and had helped steer our business through several transformational changes. I am a fan of his wide world view and look forward to working with him to chart Pepperfry’s future through India’s rapidly evolving digital and retail landscape.”
“It gives me great delight to rejoin the Pepperfry family. The company is a differentiated brand in the e-commerce space and has undisputedly built a community-based platform defining home and living. In its decade long journey, Pepperfry has shown all the makings of a strong consumer brand. I look forward to working closely with the team to drive the next phase of growth,” said Anand Batra.
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.
