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Big Boy Toyz sells VIP number plate for Rs 2.08 crore in one of India’s costliest deals
NEW DELHI: Big Boy Toyz has fired an opening salvo in India’s luxury collectibles market with a headline-grabbing sale. The VIP number plate DDC 0001 was auctioned for Rs 2.08 crore on the newly launched Auction House by Big Boy Toyz, marking one of the most expensive number plate transactions in the country and signalling growing confidence in the platform.
The auction coincided with the launch of Auction House by Big Boy Toyz, the company’s foray into building what it describes as India’s first premium destination for high-value collectors. The platform brings together luxury cars, celebrity-owned vehicles, elite number plates, premium watches and exclusive mobile numbers under a single, verified ecosystem.
Built around transparency, verification and ease of transaction, the auction house aims to introduce global auction-house standards to India’s fast-growing luxury market. The winning bidder for DDC 0001, Kiran Kolipakula from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, underscored another shift: high-value luxury buying is no longer confined to metro cities.
The transaction highlighted both the pan-India reach of the platform and rising demand for collectible assets that combine rarity, status and long-term value.
“For nearly two decades, Big Boy Toyz has been built on one simple promise: trust. People have trusted us with the most valuable cars in the country,” said Jatin Ahuja, founder and managing director of Big Boy Toyz. “Over the years, we’ve built deep relationships with India’s most elite collectors and industry leaders, consistently operating within the inner circle of luxury. That credibility is what naturally led to the Auction House. When you’re dealing with assets of this value, transparency and verification matter more than anything else. The Rs 2.08 crore auction of DDC 0001 reinforced that collectors are ready for a platform they can believe in, no matter where they come from. Auction House by Big Boy Toyz is our way of extending that trust into a broader world of luxury collectibles, with global standards but a very Indian understanding of how people buy and sell.”
The platform is designed to serve both sides of the market. Sellers gain access to a curated, affluent buyer base, while buyers are offered end-to-end transaction support and the chance to own assets positioned as legacy pieces.
Current listings span celebrity cars and rare collectibles, including Dinesh Karthik’s Range Rover Sport SVR, Shilpa Shetty’s Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600, Rohit Shetty’s Mercedes-Benz CLA 200D, a Rolex Daytona with Tiffany dial, collectible Hublot King Gold Skeleton Chronograph, rare mobile numbers 999999999X and 888888888X, and elite number plates such as CHE78 and HR59 0001.
With a long-term ambition to build an Indian equivalent of Sotheby’s or Christie’s, Big Boy Toyz plans to expand the auction house into new categories, including luxury handbags, rare art, collectibles and premium real estate.
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Gurgaon, Big Boy Toyz is one of India’s leading luxury and pre-owned automobile dealers, with operations across Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The company serves over 10,000 UHNI and HNI clients and attracts nearly 30 million monthly digital visitors.
From supercars to symbols of status, Big Boy Toyz is betting that trust, not just flash, will power India’s next luxury boom.
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Tessolve lands a semiconductor veteran to drive its next big push
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, who started his career at ISRO and has spent 35 years building chips and companies, joins the Bengaluru-based firm as president and chief operating officer
BENGALURU: Tessolve has never been shy about its ambitions. The Bengaluru-based engineering services firm already counts 18 of the world’s top 20 semiconductor companies among its clients, employs more than 3,500 engineers across 12 countries, and last year pocketed a $150m investment from TPG. Now it has hired the executive it believes can turn those assets into something bigger. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, a 35-year semiconductor veteran who once built satellite payloads for ISRO and has since scaled engineering organisations across three continents, joins as president and chief operating officer, effective immediately.
THE MAN AND THE MANDATE
The appointment is, by any measure, a serious hire. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu comes to Tessolve after senior leadership stints at HCL Technologies, Altran and Wipro, where he managed large profit-and-loss portfolios and oversaw cross-regional teams. Over the course of his career, he has been instrumental in bringing more than 1,000 new products to market across the high-tech, energy and manufacturing verticals. Before the private sector claimed him, he began his working life as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation, contributing to research and development in charge-coupled device technology and satellite payloads, a foundation that shaped everything that followed.
In his new role, he will lead Tessolve’s global growth strategy: expanding its engineering capabilities, deepening customer relationships and accelerating innovation across semiconductor and high-performance computing domains. The brief is broad, but the context is specific. Tessolve operates in the $550 billion global semiconductor market, and its recent moves, the acquisition of Germany’s Dream Chip Technologies and the TPG funding round, have sharpened both its reach and its expectations.
Srini Chinamilli, co-founder and chief executive of Tessolve, is characteristically direct about why Ravi Kumar Chirugudu was the choice:
“As we scale our global semiconductor and system engineering capabilities, Ravi’s appointment marks an important step forward. As global semiconductor demand continues to accelerate across industries, it is creating significant opportunities across the semiconductor lifecycle, from design, packaging, validation and systems integration. Ravi’s deep knowledge and leadership in this ecosystem brings the right mix of industry expertise, customer connect and execution capability, which will play a key role in strengthening our position as a trusted global engineering partner and reinforcing our market leadership.”
THE NEW ARRIVAL SPEAKS
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, for his part, frames the move in terms of timing and culture, two factors that veteran executives tend to weigh as heavily as title or compensation:
“I am happy to join Tessolve at a time when the industry is rapidly evolving towards more complex, AI-driven systems. What stands out to me is its strong people-first culture and its commitment to bringing value to its customers. The strength of its global team, combined with its deep expertise in semiconductor innovation and next-generation product engineering, creates a solid foundation to build differentiated, scalable solutions. I look forward to working closely with the team to drive strategic growth and strengthen its role in shaping the global semiconductor ecosystem.”
The reference to AI-driven systems is not incidental. The semiconductor industry is in the midst of a structural reshaping, driven by the insatiable compute demands of artificial intelligence. For engineering services firms like Tessolve, which offers end-to-end capabilities from silicon design to packaged parts and invests in high-performance computing, high-speed interfaces, photonics and 5G, the moment is both an opportunity and a test. The company says it is well positioned to capture the next wave of industry growth. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu is now the person who has to prove it.
He came in from outer space, literally, and spent three decades learning how the semiconductor industry works from the inside out. Now Tessolve is betting that accumulated knowledge can help it cross the next frontier. In the $550 billion global chip market, the gap between ambition and execution is measured in engineering hours and leadership quality. Tessolve has just gone shopping for both.
