Bertelsmann India Investments offers tips to startups through podcast

Bertelsmann India Investments, a venture capital fund of Bertelsmann, a media, services and education company that operates in about 50 countries around the world, has taken the content route to reach out to startup community with the launch of podcast titled ‘Building it Up with Bertelsmann’.

Focused on entrepreneurship and the growth pangs of new ventures, the podcast has gained significant listenership in the startup community across various platforms, including iTunes, Saavn, SoundCloud and Spotify.

The 12-part podcast series, hosted by Ankur Warikoo, Co-founder and CEO, nearbuy.com, provides entrepreneurs and everyone associated and interested in India’s startup story, valuable insights on how to take a startup from ‘10 to 100’.

The first three episodes of the podcast were launched on August 30, 2018, featuring industry champions such as Deep Kalra, Founder and CEO of MakeMyTrip; Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Co-Founder, Info-Edge and Shernaz Daver, Executive Advisor, Google Ventures.

A new episode has been released every alternate Thursday thereafter, featuring Annabelle Yu Long, Founding and Managing Partner, Bertelsmann Asia Investments; Alok Kejriwal, Co-Founder, Games2win; Ashwin, Co-founder and MD, iNurture; and Pankaj Bansal, Co-Founder and CEO, PeopleStrong.

Boring Brands, the new-age media agency, has worked on conceptualising the Podcast with Bertelsmann India and is leading the PR and distribution efforts as Outreach Partner.

Pankaj Makkar, Managing Director, Bertelsmann Investments India, said, “At Bertelsmann, we believe in creativity, entrepreneurship and knowledge sharing being at the heart of value creation. Through honest conversations around the nuances and subtleties of scaling up a business, ‘Building It Up’ will bring together the most respected voices of the startup community onto a knowledge-sharing platform and provide answers to some of the biggest challenges related to the growth of a startup.”

“VCs across the globe today are finding innovative ways of capturing the mindshare of the community, and with the expertise on the ecosystem that Boring Brands brings to the table, we were extremely excited to partner with them for this initiative,” he added.

Aakriti Bhargava, Co-Founder and CEO of Boring Brands, said, “Focused on creating innovative marketing strategies for VCs and startups, Boring Brands takes pride in adding value and shaping up successful narratives for various brands. We are extremely thrilled to partner with Bertelsmann India Investments in their quest to build their brand in the country and come across as thought leaders in the space. The Building It Up initiative is one of the best examples of how VCs are reaching out to their audience and establishing a connect with them.”

“Podcasts today have become a great way of capitalising and distributing owned content, and to have so many industry veterans on one platform makes it a must hear for all budding entrepreneurs and startups in the ecosystem,” added Bhargava.

The ‘Building It Up with Bertelsmann’ initiative is also being promoted on different social media channels, including Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter and has so far garnered more than one million impressions. The podcast has additionally noticed user engagement of 4+ lakh users in just five weeks of its launch.

RedFM 93.5 has provided high-quality production support for recordings for all episodes.