MAM
Gaurav Nabh and Deepak Kumar launch Thrive
Mumbai: After successfully building the full-service digital agency Korra over the last five years, seasoned creative and marketing experts Gaurav Nabh and Deepak Kumar launched Thrive, a new-age creative capital. Through Thrive, both Gaurav and Deepak aim to bring their expertise and experience to new-age and digitally native brands, support them with their brand story and infuse them with capital to accelerate their growth. While Gaurav Nabh served as the founder and CEO of Korra, Deepak Kumar, served as the agency’s chief creative officer.
Thrive will infuse new-age brands with a unique incubation platform. Focused on partnering with early-stage direct-to-consumer brands, Thrive will guide them with their narrative, go-to-market strategy, ROI-based media and content. Thrive will support brands with creative and capital investment, thus enabling founders to focus on their growth story and scaling their business.
Having spent over two decades in marketing consulting and having worked closely with brands of all sizes, Gaurav has led multiple successful brand launches in India during his roles at NIIT, Virgin Mobile & Telenor. He has served as the Chief Marketing Officer at fast fashion brand Koovs and led a digital consulting business at GroupM. Deepak on the other hand has over 15 years of experience in building brands like Mamaearth, Uber, Taco Bell and Land Rover along with agencies like Ogilvy, Havas and Wunderman Dubai. His work has won him several metals at Cannes, New York Festival and ADFEST along the years.
Speaking on Thrive’s creative capital, Thrive founder Gaurav Nabh said, “Having been a part of the industry for over 2 decades, we believe that the world has changed, and brands are being built in more guerilla ways than ever. Advertising today is no longer limited to a campaign and brands with a purpose coupled with strong brand narratives will have a better right to win. Thrive is founded with the idea to partner with founders, who are building for the audiences of today, a consumer who is far more aware, educated and conscious of their choices. We believe founders today need the right advice backed by experience, relevant brand narratives, razor-sharp creativity and creative capital to grow. Whether it is finding a brand’s purpose, helping scale business through new product introductions and launches or even disrupting with never-seen-before brand marketing and content, Thrive will change how new-age brands are built.”
“No brand is born to just survive but Thrive. We believe brands thrive when the brand partners directly collaborate with marketers and founders and own outcomes more than owning ideas. Having built a couple of unicorn brands, including India’s biggest IPO in 2023, we believe that our creative capital infusion will enable brands to find new ways of creating brand love. This begins with handpicking talent across industries and looking beyond traditional solutions. We are sure that the next generation of brands will be built on creative capital and Thrive is well positioned to support them on their journey.” added Thrive co-founder Deepak Kumar.
Built to help brands in a highly dynamic environment, Thrive has partnered with brands in the sexual wellness, personal care, pet food, and fintech category. Thrive is already working with brands across Reckitt, Nestle India, DS Group, and RP Sanjiv Goenka Group as they launch.
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.
