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Anand Chandrasekaran joins Celesta Capital as managing partner
MUMBAI: Anand Chandrasekaran’s is quite a familiar face to those in the media and entertainment tech industry. A geek to the core, he has also been recognised as a shrewd observer and investor in the evolution of tech. Recently, it was announced that he joined Celesta Capital in the Silicon Valley as a managing partner.
Celesta was founded and is led by Nicholas Brathwaite, Sriram Viswanathan, and Michael Marks, and primarily invests in early-stage deep tech, companies with high potential hardware and software technologies that have a clearly identified market application.
Anand knows how to pick winners. At one stage, he led Yahooi in its mobile and search division as senior director, a position he held for three years. He led product development at Airtel and created the Wynk music app for Airtel.
Soon thereafter, he joined Snapdeal as chief product officer, a position he let go of within a year. He then went on to work with Facebook (now Meta) as director of platforms partnerships at messenger which he followed up with a sojourn at Five9.
He then went on to go on board General Catlayst as an investor and partner. Along the way he seed invested in several start ups and has been recognised as one of India’s top seed investors for three years consecutively.
Most recently, he co-founded Celesta Capital portfolio company Crescendo, helping to incubate and grow the company to over $50M in revenue and a $500M valuation in less than a year.
“We are fortunate to expand the firm’s team with such an accomplished investor, technologist, and operator. In getting to know Anand through the process of investing in his latest entrepreneurial venture Crescendo, it became clear that he shares Celesta’s passion for advancing important technologies, company creation, and the huge growth potential within the US – India tech corridor,” said Viswanathan in a note welcoming him to the company on Linkedin.
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With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
