iWorld
ZEE5 India improves customer engagement with Appier partnership
MUMBAI: ZEE5 India today announces that in partnership with leading artificial intelligence (AI) company Appier, it has significantly improved its customer engagement- including a 3x jump in click-through rates and video sampling- through effective use of AI to uncover critical insights about its viewers.
ZEE5 India launched in 2018 and as of December 2019, records more than 11.4 million peak daily users. As the audience grows, ZEE5 India is committed to understanding viewers at an individual level so it can hyper-personalize the most relevant content at the right time. This requires leveraging viewer data using AI to understand where people are in the customer lifecycle and how they consume content. With these insights, ZEE5 India defines and deploys a strategic mix of communication channels, content and consumption timeframes to ensure high acquisition, viewership, and retention rates.
ZEE5 India implemented AIQUA, an AI-powered proactive customer engagement solution from Appier that allows marketers to drive engagement across all devices and channels. Using AIQUA, Appier helped ZEE5 India streamline data sources to ensure relevant customer engagement.
“At ZEE5 India, we are committed to excellence when it comes to both our product and customer service, and we are always looking for partners with disruptive technology to help us achieve this,” ZEE5 India customer lifecycle management head Vani Dixit said. “To engage with and stay relevant to our customers, we need to leverage data efficiently using AI to better understand and reach them at times when they are most likely to take action. With Appier we reimagined how we make consumers’ content viewing experience hyper-personalized. As India’s largest producer of original content, it is our endeavor to make the consumer’s journey on to the ZEE5 platform intuitive and provide them with a seamless content viewing experience.”
With AIQUA, ZEE5 India has increased the number of specific customer segments by 10 times- from just a few hundred to thousands- allowing for the most highly personalized content delivery. AIQUA also allows for quick development and adjustment of campaigns to meet the immediate and specific needs of viewers. ZEE5 India has increased the number of campaigns it runs through AIQUA by 2000 per cent since March 2019, running several hundred campaigns daily
“Working with ZEE5 India has led to an excellent partnership, and we appreciate that the ZEE5 team has been so open with us about both their challenges and vision for success,” said Michelle Wong, Appier enterprise sales senior Vice President. “We look forward to continuing to support ZEE5’s growth through marketing excellence, and to helping them apply Appier’s AI solutions in the most effective ways to drive their business forward.”
Appier and ZEE5 India continue to work together, maintaining the focus on attracting and retaining customers via customized outreach, leading to long-term, meaningful relationships with viewers.
Gaming
MTG gaming chief Benninghoff joins NODWIN board as esports firm primes for IPO
The Gurugram-based esports firm is pursuing a public listing, has returned to profitability and is growing revenues by 42 per cent
GURUGRAM: NODWIN Gaming is moving fast. The Gurugram-based gaming and esports company has launched a pre-IPO fundraising round, appointed UBS as lead adviser for both the round and a subsequent public listing, and landed a heavyweight board director, all in one go.
The new board member is Arnd Benninghoff, executive vice president of gaming at Stockholm-listed Modern Times Group (MTG), who has overseen the group’s strategic investments and portfolio growth since 2014. He is no stranger to building things: Benninghoff has founded and built fifteen companies, served as chief digital officer at ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, managing director of SevenVentures, and chief executive of Holtzbrinck eLAB. He began his career as a journalist at Deutsche Presse Agentur and various TV networks, holds a Diplom-Kaufmann in business and administration from the University of Münster, and previously sat on the board of Edgeware AB.
The numbers back the ambition
NODWIN is not pitching a story without substance. The company has returned to EBITDA profitability and posted a 42 per cent year-on-year revenue surge, reaching $58.5m in the first nine months of FY2026. The pre-IPO round will combine a primary issuance to fund global expansion through organic growth and acquisitions, alongside a secondary sale to give existing shareholders some liquidity.
Akshat Rathee, co-founder and managing director of NODWIN Gaming, said Benninghoff understands “the entire lifecycle of the gaming and media ecosystem, from the boots-on-the-ground reality of building startups to the strategic complexity of managing multi-billion dollar global portfolios.”
Benninghoff, for his part, said the company “sits at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and technology, making it one of the most exciting players in the global gaming landscape today.”
A portfolio built for the global south
Founded in 2014 by Rathee and Gautam Virk, NODWIN has quietly assembled one of the more compelling esports portfolios outside the Western hemisphere. Its properties include DreamHack India and Comic Con India, and it recently acquired StarLadder, the Ukraine-based tournament organiser behind premier events in CS:GO and Dota 2. The company also serves as a long-term strategic marketing partner for the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), the world’s most prominent fighting game tournament, helping push it into new geographies.
Its geographic focus spans South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Backers include Nazara Technologies, KRAFTON, Sony Group Corporation, JetSynthesys, and the founders’ investment vehicle Good Game Investments.
What comes next
With UBS running the books, a board freshly reinforced with European media and gaming expertise, and revenue heading in the right direction, NODWIN is laying the groundwork deliberately. The esports industry has burned investors before with big promises and thin margins. NODWIN’s return to profitability, combined with a real portfolio of owned intellectual properties across gaming, music and youth culture, gives it a more credible runway than most. The IPO clock is now ticking.
