MAM
Exhibit’s 501 Startups – a Pitching Event culminates on a high note!
Mumbai: Exhibit Magazine, India’s leading title on technology, fashion and lifestyle hosted the 6th edition of its prestigious startup pitching summit. Rechristened Exhibit’s 501 Startups, the event was held on 24th July at JW Marriott, Juhu, Mumbai where up-and-coming entities battled it out in front of an eminent panel, comprising venture capitalists and investors. Powered by GoDaddy and held in association with Poker Saint, Exhibit ‘501 Startups’ celebrated the startup wave in India, and brought to the forefront distinct startups from the nooks and corners of the country. The day-long pitching event was also supported by IAN, NASSCOM, TiE, Inc42 and Business Standard.
The conclave saw participation of startups with an operating cycle of at least a year; from verticals across technology, sports, e-commerce, food, hospitality and travel and the likes. The esteemed jury appointed for the sixth edition of the awards included Niren Shah of Norwest Ventures, Nikhil Arora of GoDaddy, Ashish Sharma of Innoven Capital, Mohit Dak & Nilesh Balakrishnan of Orios Venture Partners, Sajad Fazalbhoy of Blume Ventures, Harish Talreja and Varun Varma of Lightbox Ventures, Vishesh Sharma of Accel Partners, Dr. Apporv Ranjan Sharma of Venture Catalysts and Ramesh Somani of Exhibit Magazine.
Exhibit 501 Startups witnessed over 5000 registrations and concluded with 25 innovative startups making the final cut to present their business models amidst the stellar jury. From the call for entries, 501 startups will also feature in an exclusive issue that will bring to light the unique ideas of these young companies. Wearable startup tech – Broadcast Wearables emerged a clear winner securing maximum scores and was closely followed by ProMeTheUs, a human resource startup focussed on talent identification and mapping, who ranked second amongst competing organisations. Startups were adjudged basis uniqueness of their product idea, presentation, and business model.
Commenting on the prestigious summit, Ramesh Somani, CEO and Editor-In-Chief, Exhibit Group said, "We are elated with the response received for the 6th edition of Exhibit 501 Startups. It’s always amazing to see the startups come in and pitch with exemplary grit, determination and passion! The Indian startup machinery has churned out some promising startups, who are waiting for their one chance of sunshine. Being a startup myself, it gives us immense satisfaction in helping startups inch closer to their goal and we’re glad, we at Exhibit provide that stepping stone. Kudos to all the winners and look forward to next year."
MAM
Publicis Groupe India launches data-led influencer platform ‘Influential’
A new platform, a seasoned hire and an ambitious plan to bring discipline to India’s booming but chaotic creator economy.
MUMBAI: Influencer marketing in India is big, messy and, for most brands, maddeningly hard to measure. Publicis Groupe India has decided it has had enough of that and is moving to fix it.
The advertising giant has launched Influential, its global creator marketing solution, in India, pairing the rollout with the appointment of Diwaker Chandani as managing partner for Influential India. The brief is blunt: drag influencer marketing out of the spray-and-pray era and into one defined by data, accountability and results that actually show up on a balance sheet.
A fragmented market ripe for disruption
India’s influencer ecosystem has scale in abundance. What it lacks is maturity. Measurement standards are inconsistent, creator databases are riddled with duplication, and brands remain dangerously hooked on organic reach, a strategy that flatters vanity metrics while delivering uncertain commercial returns. Chandani, who brings nearly two decades of experience across digital platforms and media, puts it plainly. “The ecosystem has scale, but not maturity,” he says. “By combining data-led audience intelligence with creator ecosystems and media amplification, we aim to build a model that delivers measurable and repeatable outcomes.”
It is a diagnosis that Publicis Groupe is staking serious infrastructure on. Influential is anchored in the group’s Connected Identity system, which maps consumer profiles to enable more precise audience targeting and creator selection. Layered on top are the Captiv8 platform and Influential’s global creator network, giving brands the tools to plan, activate and measure campaigns across the full funnel, from awareness down to commerce, rather than treating each influencer post as a standalone act of faith.
The hire
Chandani is not an unfamiliar face in the industry. He has held senior roles at Meta, Zee Entertainment and the Network18 Group, working across creator partnerships and content-led media strategies. His mandate at Influential India is to integrate data, creators, media and commerce into a unified framework and to build the team and client roster to scale it.
Anupriya Acharya, chief executive of Publicis Groupe South Asia, frames the launch as a response to a market that has grown faster than its own infrastructure. “The channel has reached scale, but lacks a unified, data-led foundation,” she says. “With Influential, we are moving from a creator-first approach to a cohort-first, identity-led model powered by Connected Identity.” The integration of creators, media and commerce, she adds, will enable more precise and scalable outcomes for brands.
Why now
The timing is deliberate. Influencer marketing in India is expanding rapidly, fuelled by cheap data, a vast and young social-media audience, and brands increasingly willing to redirect budgets away from traditional media. But growth without governance has created a market where consistent returns remain elusive and accountability is largely aspirational. Publicis Groupe is betting that the industry’s next phase belongs not to whoever has the biggest roster of creators, but to whoever can prove, with hard numbers, that those creators are actually shifting product.
The old model of picking a popular face, posting a reel and hoping for the best is running out of road. Influential is Publicis Groupe India’s wager that the future belongs to the spreadsheet as much as the selfie.
