MAM
Mofam launches fund for in-film advertising
MUMBAI: In-film advertising is rapidly becoming a great place for brands to collaborate with movies. To optimise the equation of expense, integration and impact, Mofam, a financial services company has launched ‘Bfund’, a fund partner to consumer brands to convert their recurring expense for in-movie product placements into a returnable investment.
Brands currently incur an expense per movie to tacitly make their brand visible. Bfund takes funds from brands only in the first year, and rotates it multiple times over a five-year tenure and returns the same with accumulated NAV at the end of the fund life.
Started by marketing, media and procurement veteran Raja Peter and career investment management professional and ex-head of private equity at Essel Finance, Sumit Mody, Bfund is a scalable solution by Mofam that helps identify movie projects, brand slots within scripts and creative leverage in feature films across the industry.
Peter says, “Marketers the world over look to maximise brand awareness at the lowest cost; Bfund is that vehicle for cinema in India. Bfund will work closely with brands to ensure a brand is ensconced within a choice of movies and genres. Our initiative will help deliver deeper brand integration across multiple movies at significantly lower CPM in this critical medium of popular culture.”
To take this unique fund to the India advertising market, Bfund is collaborating with GroupM’s Mindshare, India’s largest media and marketing investment agency. Through this alliance, Mindshare clients will get a first-mover advantage in access to product placement in theatrical releases at a lower cost.
“Product placement in theatrical releases represents an increasingly valuable way for brands to reach targeted consumers,” adds WPP India and CEO GroupM South Asia country manager CVL Srinivas. “By creating a mechanism for marketers to collaborate with film producers at early development stages in filmmaking, innovative and impactful brand integrations can be conceived and developed.”
Adding his thoughts on the alliance, Mindshare South Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar mentions, “Cinema is a uniquely immersive medium and represents an opportunity for a brand to get noticed with undivided attention. We are excited to deliver to our clients a real competitive advantage in this medium.”
Bfund is targeting a fund size of Rs 120 crore for Bollywood movies and another Rs 80 crore for Tollywood movies. It expects to start deployment from both funds by next quarter and will primarily look at star-rated projects. Investment size can be up to Rs 20 crore per project.
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.
