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Tag: Shreyas Srinivasan

  • Shreyas Srinivasan resigns post Zomato acquisition

    Shreyas Srinivasan resigns post Zomato acquisition

    Mumbai: In a significant leadership transition, Shreyas Srinivasan, chief product officer (CPO) of Paytm and founder of Paytm Insider, has resigned following Zomato’s acquisition of the ticketing platform. This move marks a pivotal moment in the evolving landscape of India’s digital entertainment and fintech sectors.

    Srinivasan, who co-founded Insider.in in 2014, played a crucial role in shaping India’s live entertainment ticketing industry. Under his leadership, the platform expanded its offerings to include a diverse range of events, from stand-up comedy shows to adventure treks, catering to a broad audience base. In 2017, Paytm acquired a majority stake in Insider.in, integrating it into its ecosystem and rebranding it as Paytm Insider.

    The recent acquisition of Paytm Insider by Zomato signifies the food delivery giant’s strategic entry into the live events and entertainment sector. This move aligns with Zomato’s broader vision to diversify its services and enhance user engagement beyond food delivery.

    Srinivasan’s departure raises questions about the future direction of Paytm’s product development and its strategy in the entertainment domain. His resignation follows a series of leadership changes within Paytm, including the exit of president and COO Bhavesh Gupta earlier this year.

  • Paytm Insider elevates Varun Khare to COO

    Paytm Insider elevates Varun Khare to COO

    Mumbai: Paytm Insider, one of India’s leading entertainment experiences platforms, announced the elevation of Varun Khare to chief operating officer (COO). In his new role, Varun will lead the company’s operational strategies, driving growth and innovation across all facets of the business.

    Having been with the organisation for four years, Varun as the business head showcased exceptional leadership, strategic vision, and a deep understanding of the evolving needs of the customers and partners. Under his management, Paytm Insider witnessed over 100 per cent growth in GMV each year over the last two years whilst quadrupling the revenue in the last two years. With a clear understanding of the brand’s vision and the need to build the event’s infrastructure in India, Varun was instrumental in making significant inroads into tier two and three markets by collaborating with artists, organisers, and promoters to enhance live event experiences.

    Before joining Paytm Insider, Varun worked with Fountainhead MKTG and eventually Oranjuice Entertainment. With a robust background spanning 17 years in the live events and entertainment industry, he specialises in meticulously crafting and executing intellectual properties (IPs).

    Talking about his new position, Paytm Insider COO Varun Khare said, “When I moved to Paytm Insider, the intention was to scale up and work with a brand whose value system and culture resonated with mine. Working with a team of 150 exceptionally talented individuals and earning their respect has been one of the most gratifying and significant achievements of my career. We have successfully expanded to over 170 cities having reached a diverse customer base across genres making my journey both challenging and rewarding.”

    He further added, “I am grateful to all the passionate people who have been a part of my journey. I am looking forward to this new phase. We’ve only just gotten started and have put ourselves in a great position to make live entertainment the preferred choice of entertainment across the country.”

    Talking about Varun’s promotion, Paytm Insider founder & CEO Shreyas Srinivasan expressed, “Paytm Insider was founded with the vision of making events a preferred choice for entertainment in India. Over the last five years we have built a full-fledged platform that supports organisers with a range of services that spans ticketing, sponsorship, artist booking, marketing and more. Varun has been instrumental in this build-out, his vast experience across all aspects of organising an event has allowed us to build a platform which will champion events and organisers across this country. I am super confident that this team has the right mix to make Insider the dominant events platform in India.”

  • Bacardi Nh7 Weekender 11 goes virtual

    Bacardi Nh7 Weekender 11 goes virtual

    NEW DELHI: OML and Bacardi are all set to go virtual with the Bacardi NH7 Weekender festival this December. The 11th edition of the multi-genre, multi-city music festival will be held virtually on 5 and 6 December 2020 and can be streamed by fans across the country.

    The two-day digital edition will feature an eclectic line-up of musicians. The festival will be streaming all three stages simultaneously — the Bacardi Stage, The Dewar's Stage and Breezer Vivid Stage — clocking 16+ hours of music by local artists and international talent.

    This time around, fans will be able to host virtual parties during the stream, play games, take pictures in a virtual photo-booth, and join live parties along with artists and fans.

    Adding to the engagement factor of the digital festival experience, the tickets for this year’s edition comes with exciting perks – from the opportunity to pre-buy into next year’s edition of the festival at a reduced price, as well as thoughtfully-curated memorabilia.

    OML CEO Gunjan Arya said: “The Bacardi Nh7 Weekender has brought artists and fans together for over a decade and through the unique virtual festival experience, this is what our objective is this year as well. Bacardi’s support and Insider’s support has been instrumental in designing a highly immersive and interactive platform for this edition of the festival, which we’re extremely excited to unveil to fans of music everywhere. The festival will feature its signature programming mix of international and Indian indie musicians, and give fans to enjoy this unique experience together – albeit online.”

    Insider.in founder and CEO Shreyas Sriniviasan said: “Over the years, the festival has brought people together to experience music with their favourite artists. It’s only natural that we continue to enable the same community experience, not just with the artists, but also with each other, this time digitally.”

    "While bringing back the Weekender state of mind, we wanted to ensure utmost safety for all our artists and audiences," said Brand Bacardi India and south-east Asia senior brand manager Sameeksha Uniyal.

  • Paytm Insider introduces interactive streaming to its creator tools

    Paytm Insider introduces interactive streaming to its creator tools

    KOLKATA: In a latest update to its self-publish ticketing solution, Paytm Insider now provides video streaming capabilities with interactivity for events. Organisers can create, ticket, host events and control engagements during the event from the same self-publish creator tool in use for listing events by thousands of creators and artists across the country.

    Events on interactive streaming come with live chat, emoji reactions and various engagement options during the event such as Q&A sessions, polls and fill in the blanks. Videos can be live streamed from a streaming software and creators can also plug in pre-recorded content with ease. The latter comes handy for event formats with high production values such as music concerts. The solution supports 4K resolution videos and 360-degree VR videos as well, enabling organisers to think beyond webinar formats.

    Paytm Insider CEO Shreyas Srinivasan says, “Over the last few months, we’ve released product updates that helped ease the transition from listing physical events to ticketed digital event solutions for organisers. Our next set of features focus on raising the experience of a digital event. Our intent is not to replicate a physical event experience online but go after its core premise. At the end of the day, events are social experiences and the more we bring the sentiment of community and conversation, the faster a user will acclimatize to and adopt digital events.”

    Paytm Insider’s pilot events with interactivity have included a virtual-reality based music concert  'Retrofuture' featuring Nucleya, Anish Sood and Ritviz which 6000+ fans from all across India tuned in for, a live quiz 'Tough Questions' with popular comics Kanan Gill and Abish Mathew, and a listening session with Nikhil D’Souza on the launch of his new EP – 'Waqt'.

  • Paytm Insider launches Private Parties, an initiative to organise private online events with artist performances

    Paytm Insider launches Private Parties, an initiative to organise private online events with artist performances

    NEW DELHI: Taking digital events a notch higher, Paytm Insider has launched a new initiative “Privates Parties”. The newly added feature enables individuals to book exclusive performances with a range of artists on the platform, delivered virtually in a personal setting for friends and family.

    Private Parties is currently focused on birthdays for kids, with curated artists for storytelling, magic, puppetry and craft activities, and content specially designed for kids under the age of six. Featured talent includes Aparna Athreya – TEDx speaker and founder of the Kid and Parent Foundation, Amit Kalantri – illusionist, and Usha Chhabra – author and performance storyteller, to name a few.

    Paytm Insider CEO Shreyas Srinivasan says, “Families and friends have adapted to stay safe by staying connected online but when it comes to special occasions, the digital environment felt limiting. Private Parties aims to bring some of the fun back, create new memories for children celebrating their birthday in lockdown.”

    Booking private events on Paytm Insider is simple and convenient. One can choose from a handpicked list of artists and shows across various genres suited for the occasion, pick a convenient date and time slot, make the payment, and then wait for the D-Day. The event link is mailed along with the rest of the booking details to the host, which they can share with invited guests.

    Paytm Insider further plans to extend this initiative to provide experiences suitable for teenagers and adults, and for occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries and more – online for now and at home later, as the country recovers from the pandemic. With exciting additions in the pipeline – DJs, comedy acts, musicians, and features such as personalised invitations and lots more, the platform is focused on taking online celebrations up several notches.  

    Take a look at the “Private Parties” experience on Paytm Insider here – https://insider.in/celebrations/kids-under-six/birthdays/

     

  • OML’s The Circuit #SitDown Comedy Festival goes digital with Paytm Insider

    OML’s The Circuit #SitDown Comedy Festival goes digital with Paytm Insider

    MUMBAI: Tickets to OML’s multi-genre comedy festival The Circuit #SitDown Comedy Festival went live with tickets on Paytm Insider yesterday. The festival due to begin in March was called off pre-emptively after the COVID-19 outbreak in India. The festival is now back on in its digital avatar with Paytm Insider powering a seamless experience for the organisers, artists and fans.

    Paytm Insider recently announced a roll-out of new features to enable organisers to publish tickets and manage their event online. The platform currently supports Zoom-based event publishing. Customers who purchase tickets get their event access details on the ticket and a reminder when the show is about to go live. This will be the first digital comedy festival of its kind using the platform’s capabilities.

    Simply having the ability to perform for a “live” audience changes the experience for the artist. Paytm Insider which ticketed over 6,000 comedy shows in 2019-20 understands and values this.

    Paytm Insider CEO Shreyas Srinivasan says: “We went back to the roots of what makes an event special – for an artist and for a fan. Paytm Insider is bridging the distance between the two when events are being run digitally. With our new event self-publishing features, we enable artists and organisers to once again count on ticketing revenue.”

    Starting this week, Paytm Insider will also run contests to provide erstwhile IRL “meet and greet” experiences for fans, this time over video. The Circuit Comedy Festival will be on from April 22 – 26, bringing some of the best and new comedy talent straight to your screens, in fresh interactive formats.

  • Paytm Insider & Qyuki digital media host ‘Epic Fam Jam 2020’

    Paytm Insider & Qyuki digital media host ‘Epic Fam Jam 2020’

    MUMBAI: Paytm Insider & Qyuki hosted 'Epic Fam Jam', India's biggest fan festival with popular Instagrammers and Tik Tok creators at JioWorld Garden, BKC, Mumbai. The one-of-a-kind event was aimed at bringing together India’s biggest internet sensations in one place for the first time in India.

    Popular Tik Tok & Instagram celebrities such as Jannat Zubair, #Team07’s Mr. Faisu, Adnaan Shaikh, Hasnain Khan, Faiz Baloch, and Shadaan Farooqui, #Teentigada’s Sameeksha Sud, Vishal Pandey, and Bhavin Bhanushali, choreographer Awez Darbar with Nagma Mirajkar, Siddharth Nigam and Avneet Kaur, were present at the blockbuster event. The evening started with an engaging performance by Indian Television actor and singer, Suyyash Rai and the fans got to groove to the tune of Gajendra Verma, the recent ‘Tera Ghata’ fame singer.  By organizing Epic Fam Jam, Paytm Insider reaffirms its commitment to empower the promising artists hailing from new-age internet platforms and their fans to meet & greet and collaborate to create memorable and long-lasting experiences for everyone involved.

    Paytm Insider CEO Shreyas Srinivasan said, "Being big believers in the transformational power of shared experiences, we hosted 'Epic Fam Jam 2020'. We wanted to do something unique for this growing community of short-format content creators and enable them to have a truly-deserving festival they aspired for. Going forward, we will continue to organize more such events to engage stars and fans under one umbrella and give them unique reasons to bank on collaboration opportunities."

    The event provided fans the chance to meet their favorite celebrities, exclusively and get a chance to make collab videos followed up by a concert featuring the creators, Mr. Faisu, Jannat Zubair, along with other artists like Kings United, among others. The attendees also had a chance to engage with micro content creators like Shanayaa & Masroor, Sameer Mark, Arhan Ansari and Aamir Arab.

    The evening was about getting familiar with the personalities that the fans are used to watching only on their favorite social media apps. From selfies to personal chat, follow backs and much more was on offer at the Epic Fam Jam 2020 that concluded with #EpicAfterParty leaving everyone present at it, mesmerized.