MUMBAI: Rahul Razdan, the architect behind some of India’s most audacious digital ventures, has emerged from Reliance Jio’s corridors to launch Giga, his latest gambit to reshape gaming and entertainment. The 51-year-old, who spent nearly a decade building JioChat into a multimedia powerhouse, now promises to deploy artificial intelligence to revolutionise how humans engage with games.
Razdan’s pedigree reads like a who’s who of India’s digital transformation. As president of Tencent’s Indian operations between 2012 and 2014, he orchestrated WeChat’s meteoric rise, briefly dethroning established messaging giants. The app’s coup de grâce came via an audacious marketing blitz featuring Bollywood stars and a record-breaking QR code cake made from 7,500 individual cakes.
His tenure at Jio proved equally theatrical. JioChat became the first app to bear the Jio brand, even predating the network itself. Under his stewardship, the platform birthed India’s pioneering vertical video ecosystem and hosted the award-winning KBC Play Along game, where users played alongside television’s prime-time quiz show in real time.
Before his corporate conquests, Razdan co-founded ibibo.com, crafting what he claims was India’s first internet business with multiple revenue streams firmly embedded. The venture, backed by South Africa’s Naspers and China’s Tencent, pioneered social gaming with local flavour and real-money integration.
Giga’s cryptic website teases that “the 400 pound gorilla is coming soon,” offering little beyond Razdan’s promise to blur traditional entertainment boundaries. His track record suggests punters should pay attention. After all, this is the same executive who recently pivoted to filmmaking at 51, producing an award-winning animated short that swept international festivals from London to Buenos Aires.
Armed with degrees from the School of Planning and Architecture and IIM Indore, plus two decades navigating India’s digital rapids, Razdan appears intent on proving that gaming’s next act has only just begun.