Branded mall

On 15th July, Airtel logos emerged on a relatively new mall on the tony Banjara Hills Road of Hyderabad. The mall, which has been up and running since January this year, and is owned by a well-known Tollywood director and producer (K. Raghavendra Rao), houses Cinemax with a few restaurants. In undergoing a name change — from RK Cineplex to Airtel RK Cineplex — it gave shape to what is the country’s first branded mall. Evidently, this is a smart deal at a time when most malls are on the back foot.

Asked to explain how it works, Airtel officials, wary about sharing numbers, merely said this is the “first-of-its-kind single-brand Cineplex in India, a one-stop shop for Airtel customers, and an example of innovative marketing where the entire building will be branded with Airtel.” The tie-up between Airtel and RK Cineplex gives the telco right to brand the common areas in the Cineplex.

“We go where there are footfalls. A mall was a natural choice,” says Manoj Kohli, CEO & Joint Managing Director, Bharti Airtel. “We have been doing branding in trains and buses also.” Adds Kohli: “We do this from time to time to reach as many people as possible. We are a mass brand and these projects are undertaken to ensure the common people can relate to them.”

• This is India’s first single-brand Cineplex
• Airtel gets the right to brand the common areas in the mall.
• It’s a one-stop shop for Airtel products (digital, broadband & mobile).
• Deal and payments are based on location, footfalls and cost.
  

A fund for new enterprise
Called the India Innovation Fund (IIF), this joint initiative between the IKP Knowledge Park in Hyderabad and NASSCOM, is a unique early-stage fund that will become operative in September. It aims to build IP-based companies in Information and communication Technologies (ICT) and Life Sciences sectors.

Structured as a SEBI-approved domestic VC Fund, it is raising a corpus of Rs 100 crore. Says Deepanwita Chattopadhyay, MD and CEO of IKP: “The fund aims to make up for the shortage of capital supply from early stage VCs and Angel investors.”

• Type of companies it will fund: Medical technology, life sciences, communication.
• Size of companies: Investment could be Rs 2-4 crore per venture (not more than 10 to 15 per cent of the fund size).
• Difference from a VC or Angel: It’s an early stage fund that bets big on people and ideas without a proof of concept.