e-commerce
GoDaddy initiates IPO
MUMBAI: GoDaddy, the Scottsdale internet domain registration company, has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering.
According to a press statement issued by the company, the number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering has still not been determined. The company announced the filing in a tweet.
International news websites have stated that GoDaddy has notified the Securities and Exchange Commission that it could raise about $100 million in an IPO.
Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup are leading the offering. Among the list of underwriters is KKR’s capital markets arm. He will remain as executive board chairman.
In another recent development, the company also announced that its founder, Bob Parsons, will step down as executive chairman. GoDaddy was founded in 1997 and was bought in 2011 by a group of private-equity firms, led by KKR and Silver Lake, for $2.3 billion including debt.
There have been reports that GoDaddy has reported a loss of $200 million or 79 cents a share on revenue of $1.13 billion in 2013. As of 31 March 2014, it reported assets of $3.25 billion against liabilities of $2.42 billion, including $1.09 billion in long-term debt.
It was in the year 2005 that GoDaddy caught the attention of the world with its racy ads splashed during Super Bowl. Though the brand is known for its outrageous and funny ads in the last couple of years it has toned down its marketing.
It will be interesting to see how GoDaddy will reposition itself post IPO.
e-commerce
When love sat down Instamart’s Phools bloom into a viral Valentine
A Bandra bench, two flowers and four million views spark quiet romance.
MUMBAI: Sometimes, romance doesn’t need a script, just a place to sit. This Valentine’s Day, Instamart discovered exactly that with Phools in Love, a public installation in Bandra, Mumbai, where two oversized sunflowers and an ordinary bench quietly stole the spotlight.
The idea was disarmingly simple. Instamart placed the installation in a public space and let people react without prompts or instructions. Couples, families, morning walkers and curious passersby were invited to sit, pause and interpret the moment for themselves. What followed was a stream of unfiltered responses, shy smiles, awkward laughter, tender glances and playful giggles, each moment shaped entirely by those who stumbled into it.
Captured as a digital-first film, Phools in Love struck an immediate chord online. Within 12 hours of release, the video clocked close to 4 million views, fuelled largely by organic sharing across social platforms. Viewers were drawn not by spectacle, but by recognition, the familiarity of understated, almost cinematic intimacy.
The installation leaned into a truth deeply rooted in Indian culture. Romance here has rarely relied on loud declarations. Instead, it thrives in suggestion, a look held a second longer, a shared laugh, a 90s hindi movie frame where two flowers say more than words ever could. In Bandra, those cues played out in real time. A couple in their 60s exchanged surprised smiles. A young pair broke into laughter. Children squealed as parents instinctively reached for their phones. A same-sex couple quietly held hands and leaned into the moment. To an onlooker, it was just two flowers. Everything else was imagined.
Instamart stayed deliberately in the background, acting as the quiet enabler rather than the hero of the scene. Participants were surprised with Valentine’s Day gifts, flowers, chocolates, teddies and small, thoughtful tokens delivered almost as instantly as the emotion itself. The gesture reinforced Instamart’s positioning as the brand that shows up in fleeting moments, especially when love arrives last minute.
“Romance in India has never been about spelling everything out,” said Swiggy head of brand Mayur Hola. “It’s always lived in suggestion, in old Bollywood frames where two flowers could say more than words ever could. With Phools in Love, we wanted to recreate that feeling in the real world and see how people interpret love in their own way.”
The campaign also tapped into a wider Valentine’s buzz around the platform. Instamart recently went viral for its limited-edition bouquets made of chocolates, condoms, protein bars, snacks and flower-shaped hair clutches, a playful nod to the growing appetite for personalised, unconventional gifting.
In a season crowded with grand gestures and loud declarations, Phools in Love stood out by doing the opposite. By letting people project their own stories onto a simple setup, Instamart turned an ordinary bench into a mirror and reminded the internet that sometimes, love only needs a moment to sit down and bloom.
