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Tag: Rishi Malhotra

  • Maverick Records CEO Guy Oseary joins Saavn as investor and partner

    Maverick Records CEO Guy Oseary joins Saavn as investor and partner

    NEW DELHI: Legendary record executive, investor, talent manager, and CEO of Maverick Records Guy Oseary is joining entertainment streaming service Saavn as a partner and investor.

    Oseary’s career in the entertainment industry spans decades of achievement. At Maverick Records, he led the label to sales of over 100 million records, worldwide. His Maverick Films oversaw the Twilight movie series for a combined gross of more than $2 billion in global sales.

    In addition to working with Madonna for over 25 years, Oseary works alongside some of the best managers in the music business, representing some of the world’s greatest artists, including U2, Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Paul McCartney, Nicki Minaj, Jason Aldean, Fifth Harmony, G-Eazy, and the Weeknd.

    As an investor and partner in Saavn, Oseary will help the company continue to build a robust platform for streaming entertainment in India. With a foundation of more than 20 million music tracks, streaming to 196 countries in 13 languages, Saavn claimed its uniquely localized approach has established a new, effective model for international streaming entertainment.

    Oseary said: “I have been a big supporter and investor in music streaming for years. Saavn is the leading music service in one of the world’s largest and most dynamic markets. Many artists would love for their music to reach India’s over one billion residents. From the time I’ve been in the music business, that process has always been too complicated; now, through Saavn, it is finally possible to have a true local partner in India that gets it, and will work hand-in-hand with artists and their managers. I’m very impressed by Rishi’s vision and his exciting plans for Saavn moving forward.”

    Saavn’s disruptive business model, built around a native mobile advertising platform, fast-growing subscription base, and partnerships with leading mobile carriers, demonstrates a sustainable way forward for the streaming industry, while its original programming initiative is introducing Indian audiences to new modes of premium audio content never before heard in the country. In a region that has traditionally seen music and film consumed simultaneously, Saavn is into OTT distribution of new music and original programming for the millennial generation.

    Saavn CEO and Co-founder Rishi Malhotra said: “As we continue to evolve Saavn into the first stop for streaming entertainment in India, we focus on marrying the best content with the best mobile products. Our global perspective and local approach has enabled us to create a powerful streaming economy in India. Guy and I are developing unique artist collaborations for Saavn and we’re honoured to have him as a partner and investor. Guy has incredible instincts across entertainment and media. He understands that we are not building the Spotify or Pandora of India. We are building Saavn in India, for India, and we’re thrilled to work with him to build the company for the long term.”

  • Maverick Records CEO Guy Oseary joins Saavn as investor and partner

    Maverick Records CEO Guy Oseary joins Saavn as investor and partner

    NEW DELHI: Legendary record executive, investor, talent manager, and CEO of Maverick Records Guy Oseary is joining entertainment streaming service Saavn as a partner and investor.

    Oseary’s career in the entertainment industry spans decades of achievement. At Maverick Records, he led the label to sales of over 100 million records, worldwide. His Maverick Films oversaw the Twilight movie series for a combined gross of more than $2 billion in global sales.

    In addition to working with Madonna for over 25 years, Oseary works alongside some of the best managers in the music business, representing some of the world’s greatest artists, including U2, Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Paul McCartney, Nicki Minaj, Jason Aldean, Fifth Harmony, G-Eazy, and the Weeknd.

    As an investor and partner in Saavn, Oseary will help the company continue to build a robust platform for streaming entertainment in India. With a foundation of more than 20 million music tracks, streaming to 196 countries in 13 languages, Saavn claimed its uniquely localized approach has established a new, effective model for international streaming entertainment.

    Oseary said: “I have been a big supporter and investor in music streaming for years. Saavn is the leading music service in one of the world’s largest and most dynamic markets. Many artists would love for their music to reach India’s over one billion residents. From the time I’ve been in the music business, that process has always been too complicated; now, through Saavn, it is finally possible to have a true local partner in India that gets it, and will work hand-in-hand with artists and their managers. I’m very impressed by Rishi’s vision and his exciting plans for Saavn moving forward.”

    Saavn’s disruptive business model, built around a native mobile advertising platform, fast-growing subscription base, and partnerships with leading mobile carriers, demonstrates a sustainable way forward for the streaming industry, while its original programming initiative is introducing Indian audiences to new modes of premium audio content never before heard in the country. In a region that has traditionally seen music and film consumed simultaneously, Saavn is into OTT distribution of new music and original programming for the millennial generation.

    Saavn CEO and Co-founder Rishi Malhotra said: “As we continue to evolve Saavn into the first stop for streaming entertainment in India, we focus on marrying the best content with the best mobile products. Our global perspective and local approach has enabled us to create a powerful streaming economy in India. Guy and I are developing unique artist collaborations for Saavn and we’re honoured to have him as a partner and investor. Guy has incredible instincts across entertainment and media. He understands that we are not building the Spotify or Pandora of India. We are building Saavn in India, for India, and we’re thrilled to work with him to build the company for the long term.”

  • Saavn raises $100 mn; to move into video

    Saavn raises $100 mn; to move into video

    MUMBAI: Move over hotstar.com. Competition is coming your way. Earlier, this year, the Neeraj Roy led music streamer Hungama.com raised around $100 million to expand its service into video delivery to its subscribers. Then Hooq.com announced its foray into the over the top (OTT) market. Now it’s the turn of New York headquartered Saavn to announce that it is going to move into delivering video content to its subscribers. The company late last night confirmed that it had managed to raise $100 million in a Series C round led by Tiger Global.

     

    Among investors who also took part in the round figure: existing investors Bertelsmann India Investments, Steadview Capital, Liberty Media, and Mousse Partners, and new ones such as Qulvest, hedge funds from Hong Kong and a number of strategic individuals. Avendus Capital in Mumbai and LionTree Advisors advised on the deal. The $100 million fund raise values Saavn.com which started in 2007 at $300-400 million.

     

    Saavn CEO Rishi Malhotra revealed that the service is adding a million monthly average users (MAU), with a total of around 14 million MAU currently and hopes to cross 20 million MAUs by end this year.

     

    The company is banking on the mobile users to take up its music and video streaming service in a bigger way.  Malhotra told techcrunch.com that almost 90 per cent of its subscribers are on mobile and have been averse to paying and hence Saavn has been focusing on an ad-supported model for its music streaming service so far.

     

    A part of the $100 million it raised will be used to scale up its music streaming service which has a catalogue of 2 million plus songs, mostly from Bollywood. It wants to expand its sales force.

     

    “The real purpose of this raise is to continue developing our product, acquiring a larger user base, and investing in the right components that make a healthy media company,” Malhotra told techcrunch.

     

    “We want to become an entertainment ecosystem for mobile,” he continued. “That means new audio products and also video, absolutely. The exciting thing about the [Indian] market that we can be part Spotify, part Pandora, and part Netflix.”

     

    The company has signed on Bollywood heart throb Ranbir Kapoor to promote Saavn in prime time commercials on mainline Hindi general entertainment channels in India.

     

  • Saavn and Twitter create tweet-powered internet radio station

    Saavn and Twitter create tweet-powered internet radio station

    NEW DELHI: Digital streaming service Saavn has launched @SaavnRadio in collaboration with Twitter India.

     
    The new station, available for streaming globally on Saavn Radio, is the first in a series of upcoming social media and sharing integrations for Saavn. The partnership reflects Twitter’s continued efforts to create opportunities for artists on Twitter to be discovered, as well as to surface amazing music content that fans in India and around the world can enjoy.

     
    The @SaavnRadio lineup will be curated via interactions between Saavn users and Twitter, and will refresh every few minutes.

     
    To directly influence the station’s programming, users worldwide can tweet @SaavnRadio to request a song from Saavn’s robust catalog of Indian music. In India, users can request tracks from English-language artists, as well. The station will also update based on Saavn users’ shared listening activity on Twitter. Explicit requests will be prioritized over shared songs in each refresh interval.

     
    Saavn co-founder and CEO Rishi Malhotra said, “Social is more than a feature, it’s part of the DNA of streaming music, so this is an extremely powerful partnership for us. Our listeners regularly tweet their Saavn activity and playlists. We worked with the great team at Twitter to develop the user-generated radio station, completely driven by real time activity across the globe.  We’ve always pushed the limits to deliver a great product experience to millions of users daily, so we’re truly honored to be the company that’s delivering this experience with Twitter.”

     
    The technical integration will include a Twitter handle to confirm user requests.  Users will also receive a @mention alert when their requests are played.

     
    “Twitter always has and will continue to encourage innovation in the way the world experiences music. Saavn is the perfect company to work with as we look to contribute to music accessibility and music discovery for our international users, particularly in the Asian market, in an age where social sharing has no borders,” said Twitter business development India and south east Asia director Arvinder Gujral.