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Tag: Shubh Bansal

  • Pocket FM strengthens leadership team; appoints Shubh Bansal as VP- growth

    Pocket FM strengthens leadership team; appoints Shubh Bansal as VP- growth

    Mumbai: Personalised audio streaming service Pocket FM has announced Shubh Bansal’s appointment as VP-growth and Rahul Nag as head of communications. Both Bansal and Nag will be reporting to Pocket FM CEO and co-founder Rohan Nayak.

    With these appointments, the company aims to intensify its focus to accelerate revenue, speed up growth initiatives, and elevate its brand positioning, it said in a statement.

    Bansal will be leading the business growth initiatives across listeners, and new business opportunities. He was a co-founder at Truebil, an auto-tech platform acquired by Spinny where he was responsible for spearheading growth, marketing, and revenue. Before Truebil, he was associated with Housing.com.

    Nag will be driving stakeholder engagement through external, social media, and internal communications along with establishing Pocket FM as a culture-first internet organisation. With over a decade and half years of experience in the communications landscape, he has worked with organisations like Flock, Mindtree, and ShareChat. In his earlier roles, he has led the crisis communication for Mindtree during the L&T takeover conflict and contributed to leading the communications for ShareChat and Moj.

    Welcoming them onboard, Nayak said, “As we continue our exponential growth curve on the backdrop of a unique storytelling experience, we are bullish on our market leadership in pioneering the ‘audio entertainment’ space. Both Shubh and Rahul are proven leaders in their space and are valuable inclusions into our strategic team. With their strong skillsets and expertise, we hope they will bring the required momentum to our growth, revenue, and brand recall as we continue to build Pocket FM for our community.”

    These key appointments come amidst Pocket FM scaling up rapidly, and reflects an increasing trend in audio content consumption on the internet. Over the past few months, the platform has aggressively focused on monetisation and content diversity.

    Joining Pocket FM, Shubh Bansal said, “It gives me immense pleasure to work with a company that is pioneering and leading the audio-entertainment category in the OTT space. Our vision is to build category leadership for Pocket FM and lead the OTT landscape through our product innovations and business acumen. I am thankful to the founders for their trust and confidence bestowed upon me, and we will together take Pocket FM to newer milestones.”

    Rahul Nag added, “I have always been a great believer in audio-first digital content and it always feels special to have the opportunity to contribute to the leader in the space. Our objective is not just to lead India but become a strong force to reckon with, and we are hopeful of emerging as a stronger brand for our listeners, creators, employees and investors.”

    According to the company, it has recently raised $65 million in Series C funding to double down on its strategic priorities of building AI capabilities, multiplying its listeners base with new languages and strengthening its creator community. The company has already hired senior executives to address these priorities and continues to look for talents in the product and tech space aggressively, it stated. Pocket FM has raised $93.6 million till date and is backed by some marquee investors like Lightspeed, Times Group, Tanglin Venture Partners, Goodwater Capital, and Naver.

  • Truebil assigns creative mandate to Publicis India

    Truebil assigns creative mandate to Publicis India

    MUMBAI: Truebil, a leading Mumbai-based auto-tech company catering to the pre-owned car market space has appointed Publicis India to manage its creative mandate. Won after a competitive multi-agency pitch, Publicis India has been tasked to strategise and execute a forward-thinking communication plan that would pitch Truebil as a solutions provider with a difference. 

    Launched in 2015, Truebil uses artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to predict the ideal price of used cars based on various parameters like the condition of the car, geographical and seasonal factors. It is among the leading new-age start-ups catering to the used car marketplace and is backed by multiple investors including Kae Capital, Kalaari Capital, Inventus Capital and Tekton Ventures among others. 

    On appointing Publicis India as its creative partner, Truebil co-founder Shubh Bansal said, “Truebil’s core principles of trust, transparency and high quality are the exact values we wanted in our branding partner. Being a start-up, we have different needs and aspirations that a lot of agencies may not understand. But, after weeks of research and numerous meetings we narrowed down on one of the biggest names in advertising, Publicis India. With Publicis, we knew we had found the ideal partner because of their enthusiasm to work with young brands such as ours along with their years of expertise in the automobile industry.”

    On winning the mandate, Publicis India EVP Suraj Pombra said, “Truebil might sound like yet another car sale brand. But when we met them, we were infected by their unique point of view, purpose and ambition, which we know will power them onto quick and large successes. We’re very fortunate that they’ve chosen Publicis as their brand partners. For us agency folk who are accustomed to the big-client, big-brand universe, partnering with passionate start-ups like Truebil is a refreshing and challenging experience. While we’ll bring all our experience and expertise to bear on the tasks at hand, we equally look forward to learning from what is a delightful and enthusiastic bunch of people at Truebil.”

    Truebill today offers features like valuation, quick sell guarantee, vehicle buying consulting, smooth paper transfer, loan assistance and insurance, among others.

  • Truebil announces ‘sober’ campaign for safer driving

    Truebil announces ‘sober’ campaign for safer driving

    MUMBAI: Truebil, an omni-channel platform for buying and selling of pre-owned cars, launched its ‘I am sober’ campaign, aimed at ensuring a safe and secure night of merrymaking for its users this New Year’s eve.

    During the campaign, users who bought cars from Truebil outlets on 31 December were provided with breathalyser equipped car keys. The breathalyser and the car keys will both be fitted with a nano-chip and the car keys will only unlock if the driver’s alcohol consumption limit is within the legal amount. To avoid any inconvenience Truebil ensured it sent out its own drivers to pick up and drop off customers who were above the legal alcohol limit.

    Drunken driving is one of the major factors for fatal road-accidents in the country, with Delhi alone reporting the prosecution of as many as 28,006 motorists for driving under the influence last year. The problem assumes epic proportions during New Year’s Eve, when people attend numerous parties during a single night and often drive recklessly on a ‘high.’ With the government, bars, restaurants and many public-service bodies also making arrangements such as booking cabs, providing temporary stay-ins or drop-off facilities, Truebil’s initiative provides further strength to the arrangements required to make the last night of 2017 a joyous one for everybody.

    Truebil co-founder and chief of marketing and growth Shubh Bansal says, “The amount of DUI cases and drunken driving related accidents reaches a peak every New Year’s eve, and even after numerous efforts, the pattern repeats itself every year. We at Truebil decided to contribute towards ensuring safety on the last night of 2017 by ensuring our users are not able even start their vehicles if they have consumed alcohol above the legal limit. This initiative has been initiated considering the long-term benefit of our users while ensuring that they begin the New Year in a joyous note instead of dealing with the repercussions of a drunk driving induced accident.”

  • Virtual marketplace Truebil raises Rs 3.2 crore from Kae Capital, Mittal

    Virtual marketplace Truebil raises Rs 3.2 crore from Kae Capital, Mittal

    MUMBAI: Truebil, a Mumbai-based start-up in the pre-owned cars virtual marketplace has raised Rs 3.18 crore ($500,000) in its first round of funding from Kae Capital and angel investor Anupam Mittal, who is the founder and CEO of People Group.

     

    With the investment, the company plans to develop a robust technology to enhance the end user-experience and further expand to other cities in the country.

     

    Founded in March 2015, Truebil is an outcome of the integration of seven minds; Suraj Kalwani (CEO), Ravi Chirania (operations), Shubh Bansal (marketing), Rakesh Raman (product), Ritesh Pandey (technology), Shanu Vivek (marketing) and Himanshu Singhal (operations).

     

    The founders together hold an experience of having worked with companies like Housing.com, Fab.com and Fusion Charts etc. Their new venture, Truebil aims to make pre-owned vehicle buying and selling experience more rewarding and uncomplicated while ensuring absolute transparency to the buyers. Truebil provides a one stop solution for buying and selling of used automobiles by offering free inspection and valuation, quick sell guarantee, free vehicle buying consulting, smooth paper transfer, loan assistance, insurance support and car spa to all the purchases made through the online portal.

     

    Truebil co-founder and chief of marketing & growth Bansal said, “The fundamental problems in buying a pre-owned car are the delayed processes and the hassle. With Truebil’s unique model, we are confident of bringing about a revolution in the used car market in the country and making the buying process a gratifying experience for the consumers. We have received encouraging response from the users since the website’s launch in Mumbai and plan to use the current funding for innovating on the products side to give them a seamless experience.”

    Kae Capital investment director Navin Honagudi added, “Truebil lists verified cars, which solves for trust while making a purchase decision. The team has strong experience in scaling marketplace and the vision with Truebil is to buy a used car at the click of a button.”

     

    “The world is moving to full-stack solutions unlike the Indian pre-owned cars market which has not seen innovation since decades. I think Truebil and its team are poised to crack that,” said Mittal.