MAM
MissMalini Entertainment raises Pre-Series A funding
MUMBAI: MissMalini Entertainment, India’s leading lifestyle and entertainment content platform, today announced the completion of INR 104 million pre-series A funding round from Orios Venture Partners and NEA.
MissMalini Entertainment is the first mover in Indian digital media with the launch of MissMalini.com in 2008. The site was initially launched as a hobby by Malini Agarwal and quickly established itself as a popular lifestyle and entertainment community in the country. Malini’s unique voice, in conjunction with the rapid adoption of social media by millennials, captured a loyal audience that quickly grew into millions of fans. Since then, the company has built a multi-platform media network reaching over 40 million people a month across its multiple properties. MissMalini’s original lifestyle, entertainment, and social impact content is now a leading voice representing the young, connected and global Indian.
As India’s leading multi-platform new media house, the company’s mission is to entertain, inspire and empower its community of over 10 million direct followers and fans. Today, the team of 65 has established a celebrated brand that offers content and marketing services across their website, social media, television, and audio properties, along with its growing library of digital video hits. Meanwhile, Malini has been widely recognized as India’s first major digital influencer, including being named the #1 Most Influential Woman in Indian Media, Marketing and Advertising in 2017 by IMPACT magazine, as well as being featured on Fortune India’s 40 Under 40 and GQ’s 50 Most Influential Young Indians lists. She is a leading advocate for women’s empowerment and is a regular speaker at industry and youth forums.
The pre-series A investment has been raised to expand MissMalini’s leadership position with a focus on community building, and to further expand its content, technology, analytics, and sales operations. The company will build out a full-service integrated video production unit, launch vernacular content and continue innovating with new engagement platforms.
Commenting on the investment, Mr. Rehan Yar Khan, Managing Partner at Orios Venture Partners said, “Digital Entertainment is a booming industry, riding on the back of a large emerging market. This is also an industry which is constantly innovating basis the audience preference and new technology. MissMalini has been at the center-stage of this transformation from the very beginning enabling Malini and her team to understand the pulse of her readers – creating and curating content in the most consumable manner. This makes her and her venture a worthy ‘misfit’ – who dared to think of unconventional ideas and help build her venture from scratch. Having closely worked with the team over some time now, we are extremely pleased with their focus on creating content and using technology to connect the next 300 Million new internet users, and we are delighted to partner with them in their next phase of growth.”
Malini Agarwal, Founder and Creative Director at MissMalini Entertainment on receiving the pre-Series A round said, “The steady growth at MissMalini reaffirms our conviction that there are still large, untapped audiences that are looking for new ways to connect, engage and express themselves. This round of funding is an important step in expanding our focus from major Metros and deeper into Tier I and II markets, helping us build lasting and meaningful communities of engaged young Indians. This Pre-Series A funding comes at just the right time, as we continue experimenting with exciting new content formats to attract new audiences. We are proud to receive this vote of confidence from our preeminent investors and look forward to a great partnership for the journey ahead.
Talking about the growth of the company, Nowshad Rizwanullah, CEO at MissMalini Entertainment said, “Over the years, we have independently built one of India’s most respected digital media brands and a market-leading provider of production and marketing services through our blog, social media, television, digital radio, and digital video teams. We are thrilled to partner with NEA – one of the world’s largest and most active venture capital funds – and Orios Venture Partners – India’s most exciting domestic VC – to power the next phase of our growth. Their unique network and insights are a perfect complement to the opportunities in front of us and the scale of our ambitions.”
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
