Brands
Nofiltr.Group shifts focus to building creator careers, not deals
After nine years, the company focuses on building careers, not chasing brand deals
MUMBAI: In the creator economy, management often isn’t management at all. Most so-called creator management firms fall into two camps: consultants who broker brand deals and take a cut, and assistants who handle logistics and schedules. Neither builds a career, and neither safeguards a creator’s most valuable asset – their audience’s trust.
The problem is structural. Management companies earn by saying yes, but trust grows by saying no. Turn down the wrong campaign today, and your creator is worth more tomorrow. Say yes too often, and you chip away at what makes them irreplaceable.
Nofiltr.Group, led by CEO Hitarth Dadia, has long felt this tension. “We’ve turned down more money on behalf of our creators than most companies in this space have ever earned,” he said. “A management company doesn’t do that. An incubator does.”
Founded in 2017, Nofiltr was never just a manager. It was an incubator: spotting raw creative talent, often from small towns, and building careers from the ground up. Formats were developed, audiences constructed, and singularity protected. Saying no was part of the job.
Over time, the company’s label drifted towards management. Wider rosters, faster brand deals, quarterly targets – but the instinct to protect creativity never wavered. Nofiltr has built more than 15 creator careers from scratch, and prides itself not on the deals it closed, but the ones it killed.
Now, the company is clearing the clutter. It is doubling down on incubation and career building. Success will no longer be measured in campaigns per quarter, but in the long-term value of creators. Nofiltr is returning to its roots, where the structure finally matches the instinct.
Meanwhile, Dadia is preparing another venture to tackle a bigger challenge: giving creators ownership of the intellectual property they produce. A problem every other creative industry has solved, but the creator economy has yet to fix. The clock is ticking.
Brands
Dunkin’ Donuts to exit India as Jubilant FoodWorks ends 15-year franchise deal
The quick service restaurant giant is ending a 15-year franchise partnership with the American doughnut chain, even as it renews its Domino’s agreement for another 15 years
NOIDA: Dunkin’ is done in India. Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd, the country’s leading quick service restaurant operator, has decided not to renew its franchise agreement with the American coffee and doughnut chain, and will wind down its Indian stores in a phased manner before December 31, 2026, bringing a 15-year partnership to a quiet, loss-laden close.
The decision, approved by JFL’s board on March 30, 2026, ends a relationship that began with a Multiple Unit Development Franchise Agreement signed on February 24, 2011. JFL will now evaluate and undertake what it described in a regulatory filing as the “rationalisation and/or cessation of certain operations and/or sale, transfer or disposal of assets and/or assignment or transfer of franchise rights,” all in consultation with Dunkin’s brand owners and strictly within the terms of the original agreement.
The numbers tell the story bluntly. In the financial year 2024-25, Dunkin’ India posted a revenue of Rs 37 crore against a loss of Rs 19 crore — a haemorrhage that was always going to test the patience of a parent company recording revenues of Rs 6,104 crore and a profit of Rs 194 crore in the same period. Doughnuts, it turns out, were never going to move the needle.
The contrast with JFL’s handling of its other marquee franchise could hardly be sharper. Even as it walks away from Dunkin’, the company has just doubled down on Domino’s, signing a fresh Master Franchise Agreement on March 31, 2026, granting it exclusive rights to develop and operate Domino’s Pizza stores in India for 15 years, with an option to renew for a further 10.
JFL, incorporated in 1995 and promoted by the Bharatia family, operates a network of more than 3,500 stores across six markets — India, Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Its portfolio includes Domino’s and Popeyes on the global side, and two home-grown brands: Hong’s Kitchen and COFFY, a café brand in Turkey.
For Dunkin’, India was always a stretch. The brand never quite cracked the cultural code in a market where filter coffee and chai command fierce loyalty and where the doughnut remains, at best, an occasional indulgence rather than a daily habit. Fifteen years, mounting losses and a parent with better things to spend its capital on was always going to be a difficult equation to solve.
The doughnut has had its last day. The pizza, however, is staying.
