Brands
UP Yoddha partners with U.P. Kabaddi league to make a major strategic foray into Grassroots Kabaddi
Greater Noida: UP Yoddha- the Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, based franchise of Pro Kabaddi League, today announced a major strategic partnership with U.P. Kabaddi league, marking their foray into Grassroots Kabaddi within the state. UP Yoddha, in partnership with Hindustan publication intend to unearth grassroots level Kabaddi talent in the State. The league will be played from the 1st September – 13th October 2019.
U.P. Kabaddi League which is in its second season, will feature 35 men’s teams and 8 women’s team from all over the state. The men’s tournament shall be divided in four zones played across Zone A – Agra (1st – 3rd September); Zone B – Kanpur (13th – 15th September); Zone C- Gorakhpur (9th -12th September); Zone D – Varanasi (9th – 12th September) and the finals in the City of Nawabs – Lucknow (10th – 13th October). The women’s matches shall be held at Lucknow during the same time as the men’s finals.
Speaking on the association, Col. Vinod Bisht, CEO GMR League Games said, “We are delighted to partner with the U.P. Kabaddi League. Being a franchisee from Uttar Pradesh it is our duty to support talented youngsters from the region, find the right platform to develop their game and make a professional career. In the last few years, we have unearthed a few talented youngsters like Nitesh Kumar, Sumit and Surender Gill from the state and we believe there is no dearth of talent in India’s largest and most populous state. Our’s is a constant endeavor to keep unearthing more and more local talent, giving the youth a viable career option.”
All the matches will be played in the Pro Kabaddi League format and the scoring shall be akin the same. In the men’s category each zone will see two top teams qualify for Lucknow.
The team bifurcation for each zone is as follows:
Zone A – Agra – Eight District Teams
Zone B – Kanpur – Eight District Teams
Zone C – Gorakhpur – Nine District Teams
Zone D – Varanasi – Ten District Teams
Brands
Rakesh Menon joins Paytm as avp – lending
Fintech product leader takes on new role after building digital lending, payments and credit products across fintech ecosystem
MUMBAI: Rakesh Menon has joined Paytm as assistant vice president – lending, taking on a new role focused on strengthening the company’s lending and credit products.
Prior to this, Menon worked at Profectus Capital Pvt Ltd as chief manager – payments based financing and digital lending.
At Profectus, he designed and launched digital credit products for merchants with variable cash flows, including overdraft-linked and revenue-share lending models. He led end-to-end LOS–LMS API integrations with payment partners and aggregators, enabling real-time underwriting, disbursal and repayment workflows.
He also worked on funnel optimisation initiatives using journey analytics, improving onboarding, KYC and disbursal conversion by 35 per cent. He developed ecosystem partnerships for transaction-data-based credit assessment and automated settlement systems, and collaborated with credit and data science teams to strengthen risk models and early delinquency detection.
Menon standardised partner onboarding and API frameworks, reducing go-live timelines by 40 per cent and improving digital scalability.
Before Profectus Capital, he worked at PayU as senior manager – presales lead – enterprise business from August 2022 to August 2023. He set up a national presales function for fintech and digital commerce clients, aligning solutions such as EMI, BNPL, BBPS and offer engines to merchant requirements.
He also helped improve conversion rates by around 15 per cent through merchant persona mapping, demo frameworks and structured sales playbooks, working closely with product and go-to-market teams.
From April 2019 to July 2022, Menon served as business unit head – SMB – direct acquisitions at Worldline, where he built the SMB online payments vertical from scratch. The business scaled to Rs 2,500 crore in annual transaction volume, growing at 45 per cent year-on-year.
During this period, he introduced paperless onboarding processes including eKYC and eSign, developed partner dashboards and CRM automation systems, and integrated platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Tally to expand merchant adoption.
Across roles, Menon has worked across digital lending, payments and merchant financing, with experience in product development, ecosystem partnerships, API integrations and fintech-led growth strategies.
At Paytm, he will focus on scaling lending products and strengthening digital credit infrastructure within the company’s financial services ecosystem.
His appointment comes as fintech firms continue to expand their lending and embedded finance offerings in a competitive market.
