MUMBAI: In a bid to capitalise on the lucrative $40 billion India wedding industry, NDTV has now forayed into the online wedding market space with Special Occasion Limited.
For the new wedding and festival platform, NDTV has raised funding at a valuation of $20 million from US based venture capital firm CerraCap Ventures.
The company has named Sachin Singhal as CEO of Special Occasion Limited. With 10 years of experience in key startups in the country, Singhal has been instrumental in setting and scaling up leading brand likenaaptol.com.
“The wedding industry in India is a $40 billion market, which is highly disorganized and has operated the same way for decades. With India’s growing tech savvy populous; this market is ripe for disruption. Special Occasions has the right team, vision and platform to enable this disruption and be a leader in this space,” said CerraCap Ventures managing partner Saurabh Suri.
NDTV Group president revenue Smeeta Chakrabarti said, “I am delighted to welcome CerraCap and Saurabh Suri as a partner in this exciting venture. The wedding business in India is growing at huge 20 per cent year on year. There are 10 million weddings every year in India and this is a massive opportunity. Not just weddings, festival spending is also huge and this platform will be the go to destination when you are getting married or attending a wedding or celebrating any special occasion.”
Sports marketing, entertainment & licensing firm Baseline was responsible for the partnership between NDTV & CerraCap.
Baseline managing director Tuhin Mishra said, “It is always a pleasure to work with an NDTV enterprise and to facilitate CerraCap's foray into this venture of NDTV. We are very excited with this tie up and are so gung-ho about the concept of wedding and festival e-commerce that Baseline will also be investing in.”
On his appointment, Singhal said, “People are looking for answers on how to achieve their dream wedding. How to navigate from dream to reality? The new platform will be a game changer and will provide 360 degree solutions in the wedding and festival space. With the growing internet population and the adoption of smart phones, this space will disrupt too.”
