iWorld
ZEE5 India bolsters product & tech team through key appointments
MUMBAI: ZEE5, today announced key appointments in their product and technology team. As part of the strategy to further drive the next stage of growth and innovation, ZEE5 has onboarded Anjul Sachan as Adtech chief architect, Manit Kathuria as user experience head, Prateek Pant as video engineering head and Mandar Deodhar as technology (payments) director.
Sachan, a graduate from IIT Bombay, will be leading the AdTech architects team at ZEE5. He will be responsible for the R&D as well as technical execution of all AdTech projects including adserver, self-serve, and optimization engine among others. He brings with him a rich experience in building and managing ad recommendations, content feed personalization, and a self-service portal for advertisers and publishers. In his previous avatar, Anjul has led AdTech growth strategies and product roadmap for Times Internet Limited Adtech division, while working on some solutions for ad platforms, data forecasting, audience data management, ad-blocker, ad-fraud identification, and so on.
Kathuria brings over 14 years of design experience with him. In his new role, he will lead the CX experience from a product perspective. His key focus involves solving consumer problems across platforms effectively and quickly; building a seamless experience for both AVOD and SVOD users. He will lead the product design team to achieve these goals at ZEE5. An alumnus of the University of Washington in Seattle, he has also been instrumental in building companies such as Rooja.com, Exclusively.com and Prophesee during his early days in the fashion and SAAS space. He has formerly worked as design and UX head of for companies like Snapdeal, Fabhotels among others. Before joining ZEE5, he was a part of Magicbricks as user experience head
Pant, with an experience of over 18 years in technical leadership experience in video technologies has led the design and development of several multimedia CE products and OTT platforms. In his new role at ZEE5, he will be handling end to end video engineering from transcoding, encoding, CDN, and all player playability across platforms and will also be focussed on video pipelines for meta generation. He is passionate about IoT, video inferencing using AI/ML, AR/VR and cloud computing. Prior to this, he has worked with leading firms like Astro, Technicolor, Cisco, Maxim Integrated, Samsung Electronics, and DRDO.
Deodhar joins as technology director. He will be responsible for end to end technology requirements for subscription, payments, and all third-party integrations. Mandar is an IIT Bombay alumni from MTech 2005 batch and has worked in different companies like Indiagames, Disney, Citrus Payments, Hotstar and HERE Maps
Gaming
MTG gaming chief Benninghoff joins NODWIN board as esports firm primes for IPO
The Gurugram-based esports firm is pursuing a public listing, has returned to profitability and is growing revenues by 42 per cent
GURUGRAM: NODWIN Gaming is moving fast. The Gurugram-based gaming and esports company has launched a pre-IPO fundraising round, appointed UBS as lead adviser for both the round and a subsequent public listing, and landed a heavyweight board director, all in one go.
The new board member is Arnd Benninghoff, executive vice president of gaming at Stockholm-listed Modern Times Group (MTG), who has overseen the group’s strategic investments and portfolio growth since 2014. He is no stranger to building things: Benninghoff has founded and built fifteen companies, served as chief digital officer at ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, managing director of SevenVentures, and chief executive of Holtzbrinck eLAB. He began his career as a journalist at Deutsche Presse Agentur and various TV networks, holds a Diplom-Kaufmann in business and administration from the University of Münster, and previously sat on the board of Edgeware AB.
The numbers back the ambition
NODWIN is not pitching a story without substance. The company has returned to EBITDA profitability and posted a 42 per cent year-on-year revenue surge, reaching $58.5m in the first nine months of FY2026. The pre-IPO round will combine a primary issuance to fund global expansion through organic growth and acquisitions, alongside a secondary sale to give existing shareholders some liquidity.
Akshat Rathee, co-founder and managing director of NODWIN Gaming, said Benninghoff understands “the entire lifecycle of the gaming and media ecosystem, from the boots-on-the-ground reality of building startups to the strategic complexity of managing multi-billion dollar global portfolios.”
Benninghoff, for his part, said the company “sits at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and technology, making it one of the most exciting players in the global gaming landscape today.”
A portfolio built for the global south
Founded in 2014 by Rathee and Gautam Virk, NODWIN has quietly assembled one of the more compelling esports portfolios outside the Western hemisphere. Its properties include DreamHack India and Comic Con India, and it recently acquired StarLadder, the Ukraine-based tournament organiser behind premier events in CS:GO and Dota 2. The company also serves as a long-term strategic marketing partner for the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), the world’s most prominent fighting game tournament, helping push it into new geographies.
Its geographic focus spans South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Backers include Nazara Technologies, KRAFTON, Sony Group Corporation, JetSynthesys, and the founders’ investment vehicle Good Game Investments.
What comes next
With UBS running the books, a board freshly reinforced with European media and gaming expertise, and revenue heading in the right direction, NODWIN is laying the groundwork deliberately. The esports industry has burned investors before with big promises and thin margins. NODWIN’s return to profitability, combined with a real portfolio of owned intellectual properties across gaming, music and youth culture, gives it a more credible runway than most. The IPO clock is now ticking.
