MAM
Hike looks to strengthen teams with multiple hiring initiatives
Hike, India’s homegrown internet startup today shared its plans to continue hiring remotely as the ecosystem continues to navigate through a lockdown period. Working aggressively towards the launch & scale of its upcoming offering HikeLand, Hike plans to hire for over 20 open positions across roles in product, design, marketing, AI & ML, engineering, partner functions, and user research. Hike has also initiated virtual hiring events as part of its ZeroTo2 program focused on onboarding young talent from colleges. Amidst lockdown, Hike registered a surge of over 45% on inbound queries in Q2, 2020.
The start-up ecosystem in India is going through a challenging period resulting in some difficult organisational decisions. To play its part to support startup talent, the talent acquisition team at Hike is mapping and prioritizing the candidates facing job and salary cuts for its current hiring needs. Hike is working on launching a Social Recruitment Campaign as well to reach out to those facing job crunches in the coming weeks.
Anshuman Mishra, VP, Operations, Hike added, “While we face an unprecedented time as an ecosystem, we’re committed to our users in offering new-age social experiences. We aim to hire across teams through innovative remote initiatives as well as making efforts to reach out to talent in need of opportunities. Our DNA has always been to go after undiscovered talent who go on to become successful professionals and special initiatives focused on young talent like our ZeroTo2 programme. We have an incredible team at Hike who has adapted amazingly who continue to innovate & we’re looking forward to welcoming more Hikers to join this team”
Hike has also kick-started the second edition of its successful programme, ZeroTo2 designed to hire freshers and young talent including engineers with 0-2 years experience as Hike believes that young people are core to their team and understand & relate to the customer’s needs better. Hike’s customer base has typically consisted of users under the age of 24 which makes having young people on their team central to their values and culture.
Hike is using tech tools and infrastructure like Slack, Hackerank, Google Meet, and code pairing platforms for their recruitment drive. Hike also conducted its first-ever ZeroTo2 virtual hiring event receiving participation from over 78 candidates. Hike’s ongoing SDET remote hiring event is scheduled to be completed by the end of this week and has already received 400+ applications. Hike is tapping into graduating and alumni talent from leading institutions like IIT Kharagpur & Dhanbad, NSIT, DTU, IIIT Delhi, NIT Kurukshetra, and Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology for their recruitment drives.
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.
