Category Archives: Business

Aurafest Launches Pranom and SOAM in Mumbai: Premium Incense Collections Now Available Nationwide

Mumbai, Apr 24: Aurafest, the premium Indian lifestyle company founded by serial entrepreneur Sumit Govind Sharma and home décor specialist Manojkumar Sharma, held a formal launch event at Eve, Santacruz, Mumbai, to celebrate the debut of its two brands — Pranom and SOAM — and the wider availability of its prized incense stick collection across India.

The evening brought together media, lifestyle tastemakers, and creative community members in an immersive brand experience that placed Indian artisanship, fragrance, and heritage at its centre. The launch marks a significant milestone for Aurafest, which has already established a strong retail presence at ArtPort stores operated by India Retails & Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. (IRHPL) at major airports, including Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, and Cochin.

A Brand Built from Loss, Rooted in Beauty

Pranom, Aurafest’s flagship luxury brand, carries a deeply personal story. It is named in memory of two people — Prachi, daughter of Sumit Govind Sharma, and Mona, wife of Manojkumar Sharma. What began as a tribute has grown into a distinguished label offering premium handcrafted artefacts, luxury butterfly-inspired serveware, artisanal soaps, traditional collectables, and incense and wellness products — each piece a quiet nod to India’s finest craftsmanship.

The launch evening also featured the heartfelt unveiling of a curated art book comprising over 200 original artworks by Prachi — a celebration of a young life that left behind a remarkable creative legacy, and a father’s way of making sure the world remembers his daughter.

SOAM — Authentic Indian Wellness, Made Accessible

Buoyed by Pranom’s strong reception in the luxury segment, Aurafest has also launched SOAM — an accessible premium wellness and lifestyle brand that brings India’s spiritual and cultural heritage to contemporary homes at competitive price points. Derived from the Sanskrit word for ‘nectar’ or ‘divine essence,’ SOAM is designed for the modern Indian consumer seeking mindful, quality products rooted in authentic tradition.

Together, Pranom and SOAM anchor Aurafest’s dual-brand strategy — serving both the premium luxury market through exclusive airport retail, and the wider domestic audience through speciality stores, wellness boutiques, and e-commerce platforms.

India’s Finest Fragrances, Now in Your Home

The centrepiece of Aurafest’s consumer launch a premium line of incense sticks now available across India. Rooted in the country’s extraordinary fragrance geography, this collection moves from the sandalwood forests of Karnataka to the jasmine fields of Madurai, from the sage-covered ridgelines of Uttarakhand to the lavender highlands of Kashmir.

Each incense in the range is hand-crafted using natural ingredients sourced from the regions that have long been home to these fragrances. The current collection includes six signature varieties:

Sandalwood — Sourced from the celebrated forests of Karnataka, this is India’s most storied fragrance — smooth, warm, and grounding.

Jasmine — Drawn from the jasmine fields of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, this fragrance captures the fullness of India’s most beloved bloom at its evening peak.

White Sage — Inspired by wild sage from the cool, mist-covered slopes of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh — crisp, earthy, and quietly purifying.

Champa – Rajnigandha — A deeply Indian confluence of champa and tuberose, evoking festival evenings, temple courtyards, and the richness of Bengal and Uttar Pradesh’s fragrant gardens.

Tulsi – Camphor — The fragrance of every Indian morning — herbaceous, clarifying, and rooted in centuries of domestic ritual across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Lavender – Cedarwood — A meeting of Kashmir lavender and Himalayan deodar cedar — soft, floral, and deeply grounding; crafted for the wind-down hours of the evening.

All incense sticks are handcrafted from natural ingredients, with each fragrance tracing its origin to a specific Indian region and its centuries-old traditions.

— Sumit Govind Sharma, Founder Director, Aurafest

— Manojkumar Sharma, Founder Director, Aurafest

Availability

The incense collection is now available across India. The full Aurafest portfolio — including Pranom’s luxury artefacts and SOAM’s wellness range — is available at ArtPort stores at Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, and Cochin airports. For retail partnerships and bulk gifting enquiries, please contact the Aurafest team directly.

Kerala Grameena Bank sets its sights on a INR 1 lakh crore milestone for FY26-27, charting a bold path for growth, innovation and inclusive rural banking

McMaster-Built AI Speeds Up Drug Discovery, Designs New Antibiotic in Early Tests

Researchers at McMaster University have developed a new generative artificial intelligence (AI) model capable of drastically speeding up drug discovery and, in early tests, it has already designed a brand-new antibiotic.

The discovery is a demonstration of how AI could dramatically improve the slow and costly search for new antimicrobial medicines, as bacteria and other microbes continue to evolve resistance to our current suite of drugs.

The new model, called SyntheMol-RL, is trained to explore a vast chemical space of up to 46 billion possible compounds  far beyond what could realistically be tested in the lab, where even large-scale screens top out at around a million molecules. Drawing on roughly 150,000 molecular ‘building blocks’ and a set of 50 chemical synthesis reactions, the AI model is designed to generate structurally novel antibiotic candidates.

“In the lab, we can build chemical compounds using a set of smaller chemical fragments, which can be stuck together like molecular Lego blocks,” says Assistant Professor Jon Stokes, whose laboratory developed the new model. “SyntheMol-RL configures those fragments in different ways, faster than humans ever could, to create new, larger chemical compounds that should  based on its knowledge  be antibacterial.”

Stokes, a member of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, says that while generative AI is becoming increasingly effective at designing novel antibiotic candidates, key properties that determine a potential drug’s clinical viability remain difficult to assess without extensive  and expensive — laboratory testing.

“It doesn’t matter if you find a new chemical that’s antibacterial in the lab if it can’t dissolve inside the body, if it’s toxic to human cells, or if it can’t be metabolized and expelled after it has done its job,” he explains. “Bleach is antibacterial  so is fire. But they obviously don’t tick those other boxes. Good drug candidates must meet several different criteria, otherwise they’ll never become actual medicine.”

Past iterations of SyntheMol exclusively designed molecules with antibacterial activity, without consideration for these other critical properties. But, over the past two years, Stokes’ team  with collaborators at Stanford University  has refined the model so it only generates antibacterial compounds that are easy to develop in the lab and likely to be soluble in the body.

“There is a lot of conflict between compounds that are antibacterial and compounds that are water soluble,” says Gary Liu, a graduate student in Stokes’ lab and lead developer of the new model. “In previous studies, filtering for compounds that were both antibacterial and soluble after our prompt often left us with significantly fewer viable drug candidates, so we built solubility right into the generation process and now the model can efficiently design antibiotic candidates with greater clinical promise.”

In a new study, published April 23 and selected for the cover of the June issue of Molecular Systems Biology, Stokes’ team put their enhanced model to the test. They tasked it with generating water-soluble antibiotics that could treat infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus  colloquially known as “staph infections”  and quickly got several hits.

From a batch of 79 model-proposed antibacterials, Stokes’ group homed in on one particularly interesting compound  a novel, water-soluble compound that seemed likely to have antibiotic activity against S. aureus.

The new computer-designed drug candidate, which they called synthecin, was then formulated as a topical cream in the lab and tested on an otherwise drug-resistant wound infection in mouse models.

“Synthecin was highly effective at controlling the infection,” says Denise Catacutan, a grad student in Stokes’ lab who led the wet lab portions of the study. “It worked extremely well as a topical drug, and also shows early promise as something that could be applied or optimized for systemic use in the future.” 

While the new study highlights synthecin’s promise, the team has yet to uncover how the drug inhibits bacteria  a key step, Stokes says, in determining its safety profile and therefore its likelihood of someday landing in clinics. His group is now actively engaged in these critical “mechanism-of-action” studies.

Regardless of how those studies play out, though, the group sees the discovery of synthecin as validation that their AI model can rapidly generate high-potential drug candidates, shifting the burden of drug discovery from finding viable compounds to designing and optimizing them.

That shift, Stokes says, is significant not only for antibiotic discovery, but also for all areas of biochemistry.

“We used our model to design new antibiotics, but it’s capable of so much more,” says Stokes, a faculty member at the Marnix E. Heersink School of Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship and an executive member of NexusHealth. “We built it to be disease agnostic, meaning it could just as easily generate novel drug candidates for diabetes or cancer or other indications.”

Stokes’ lab continues to enhance SyntheMol and anticipates that an even more robust version will be available later this year.  

Curtain call for paper: PPDS delivers crystal clear DooH advertising to historic German theatre with a scene-stealing 12m2 Philips Urban LED 7000 Series installation

Multitalented solution: Spectacular new 6×2 metre high brightness Philips Urban LED 7000 Series display transforms communication capabilities, helping to eliminate paper waste, boost workplace efficiencies, and drive ticket sales at the acclaimed Saarländisches Staatstheater venue.

 Amsterdam, Apr 24: PPDS, the exclusive global provider of Philips Professional Displays and complementary solutions, is proud to announce the latest results of its rapidly accelerating DooH strategy, with the installation of a new 6 x 2m LED advertising wall at the historic Saarländisches Staatstheater in Southwest Germany. Delivering instant results, this transformative project has helped eliminate paper wastage, boost workplace efficiencies, and increase ticket sales.

 Opened in 1938, the Saarländisches Staatstheater (Saarland State Theatre) is a cultural landmark in Saarbrücken – the largest city in Saarland, bordered by France and Luxembourg – renowned for its diverse entertainment offerings, including opera, drama, ballet, standup comedy, concerts, and movies.

 Hosting around 30 new productions annually, amounting to some 700 events – including outside events – advertising and information are critical to ensuring ticket sales and the theatre’s ongoing success. Previously, all promotional banners and posters had to be created, printed and changed manually by staff daily, which was deemed impractical, unsustainable, and visually limited.

 The stage is set

Seeking a modern, digitised solution, the theatre teamed up with local AV/IT integration and event technology specialists, DooH Concept and LE-Eventtechnik GbR, with framework from Metallbau Patric Schmidt GmbH, to transform its communications with a fully digital, centrally managed LED solution, enabling fast, simple, and unlimited content creation and updates.

 With PPDS continuing to make significant waves in the outdoor LED market, which has already seen installations and exclusive partnerships with the likes of FC Barcelona, PSV Eindhoven and Oracle Red Bull Racing, the Philips Urban LED 7000 Series was the standout choice for this challenging project, with a stunning 2 x 6 metre wall installed on the front of the iconic building, as well as with.

 To ensure crystal clear advertising, whether viewed up close or from a distance, the 3.9 pixel pitch, high brightness Philips Urban LED 7000 Series was selected, delivering high contrast ratio and refresh rates for smooth broadcasting and more colour subtlety, shading, and saturation.

 Designed for the full range of weather conditions, from bright sunshine to inclement sleet and snow, the Philips Urban LED 7000 Series has been built to perform and last. Thanks to the display’s ambient light adjusted brightness, content remains clear and visible in all conditions, while its IP66 certification (dustproof, waterproof, and salt spray resistant) and level 6 ingress protection ensure product longevity and peace of mind.

 Crowd pleaser

Completed within a strict 10 day window, the new Philips Urban LED wall has exceeded all expectations, providing a striking and highly effective communication platform. Using a mix of static imagery, animated previews, and video content, the new display has already proven to capture the attention of pedestrians in a way simply unachievable before, while also improving its staffing and sustainability efficiencies.

 The theatre’s marketing department now manages the display centrally and independently. With easy to use, dynamic multimedia templates in place, staff can quickly update content and engage audiences directly, eliminating reliance on paper posters and supporting traditional media channels and social media campaigns.

 Konstantin Flabouriaris, PPDS Sales Director for the DACH region, commented: “Installing the display on a listed building presented several challenges. A key requirement was designing a self supporting substructure that could be securely mounted to the theatre’s façade without causing any damage. The substructure was installed using a mobile crane on day one, with the LED wall fully completed by day ten, just in time for the theatre’s new season the following day. Working closely with the theatre’s team and its partners, it was a challenge we embraced, and the results speak for themselves.”

 Prof. Michael Schulz, General Artistic Director, Saarländisches Staatstheater, added: “The new digital daily advertising board from Philips enables us to make the wide ranging program of the Saarländisches Staatstheater even more visible, reaching out directly to visitors. There has been a significant increase in theatre attendance since installing our new LED wall.”

73 Strings Launches Global Operating Model from New York to Power Next Phase of Growth in Private Markets

Jazmin Hogan to lead global client organization in next phase of growth     

New York, NY – April 23, 2026 – 73 Strings, the AI-native platform for valuation and portfolio intelligence, today announced the launch of a unified global operating model, bringing together its technology, expertise and client network to deliver the next generation of insights for alternative asset managers.

As part of this evolution, Jazmin Hogan has been appointed Global Head of Client Operations, based in New York, where she will lead the company’s global client organization.

With over 20 years of experience as a client-side valuation and analytics professional, including leadership roles at Apollo Global Management Inc., The Blackstone Group and Kohlberg & Company, Jazmin will drive a consistent, high-quality experience across regions, ensuring clients benefit from the full breadth of 73 Strings’ platform, expertise and innovation.

A key advantage of this global model is a connected client community. Clients benefit not only from 73 Strings’ SMEs, but from shared insight across some of the world’s leading alternative asset managers.

“Private markets are entering a new era, defined by data, AI and the need to operate at scale,” said Yann Magnan, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of 73 Strings. “Our global operating model brings together our platform, our people, and our clients into one connected ecosystem. It allows us to innovate faster and help our clients stay ahead, while maintaining the rigor and trust that underpin investment decisions. Jazmin will play a central role in bringing this vision to life by leading our model.”

This move marks a significant step in the company’s evolution, aligning its global teams to better support clients operating at scale across private equity, private credit, venture capital, infrastructure and multi-asset strategies.

At the core of 73 Strings is a single, integrated platform that combines valuation, portfolio monitoring and data extraction, powered by AI and built by practitioners. The firm continues to invest heavily in its technology and AI capabilities, enabling clients to scale operations and unlock deeper portfolio insight.

73 Strings combines advanced technology with deep domain expertise. Its team of valuation and portfolio specialists, including former industry leaders across private markets, ensures the platform reflects the realities of complex assets, delivering outputs that are robust and audit-defensible.

As a global, AI-first platform, 73 Strings brings together market insight, data and technology to help clients stay ahead of market shifts. At the same time, it remains focused on delivering consistent, transparent insights on complex assets at scale, without reliance on fragmented, spreadsheet-driven processes.

This announcement follows continued investment in 73 Strings’ platform, with recent enhancements improving performance, scalability and AI-driven capabilities across core workflows.

Tredence Brings Enterprise AI to Action with Google Cloud’s Gemini-Powered Agentic Accelerators

Startup Stairs to Host ‘Startup League 2026’ to Bridge India’s DeepTech Gap and support Startups with up to INR 4 crore funding opportunity

New Delhi, Apr 23:  Startup Stairs to host Startup League 2026, a national-level deep tech DeepTech hackathon and funding arena event aimed at accelerating India’s next wave of innovation-led startups. Scheduled for 11th June 2026, the initiative will address a critical gap in India’s startup ecosystem – the slow growth and commercialization of deep tech ventures.

“Over the past decade, India has seen great success in consumer startups across sectors like e-commerce, food delivery, and D2C. However, deep tech segments such as AI, drones, robotics, EV, semiconductors, and defence technology are yet to achieve similar scale and global leadership.

India has a strong pool of talent and experienced founders, but the availability of the right opportunities, structured support, and market access in deep tech remains limited. This often creates a gap between innovation and real-world application,” said Dr. Preet Sandhu, Co-Founder & Promoter at Startup Stairs.

“With Startup League 2026, we aim to bridge this gap by creating a platform that acts as both an opportunity and a solution – bringing together startups, investors, mentors, and industry leaders to support founders across every stage of their journey. This will be a recurring initiative, and Startup Stairs will continue to bring such platforms to promote funding access and strengthen India’s startup ecosystem,” added Ms. Sandhu.

The event will follow a three-phase model:

• Ideate & Qualify – Refine your idea into a structured pitch. Apply, qualify, and prepare for the stage

• Showcase & Validate – Demo your product to investors & experts. Get real-time feedback and domain validation

• Fund & Scale – Unlock capital from a ₹4 Crore pool. Accelerate growth with investor partnerships

Participating startups will gain access to up to ₹4 crore funding opportunity, along with mentorship, investor connections, product validation, go-to-market support, and scaling assistance.

Who Can Participate

Startup League 2026 is open to early-stage founders, innovators, and startups building solutions in high-impact deep tech sectors, including:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Drone Technology

• Electric Vehicles (EV)

• Robotics

• Semiconductor & Hardware (including PCB innovation)

• Defence Technology

A Full-Stack Ecosystem Approach

This event is not limited to founders alone. It is designed as a collaborative ecosystem bringing together startups, angel investors, venture capital firms, incubators, accelerators, corporates, universities, research institutions, and government partners.

Driving Indigenous Innovation Amid Global Shifts

With increasing geopolitical shifts and global supply chain disruptions, the need for indigenous technology development has never been more critical. Startup League 2026 aims to encourage Indian entrepreneurs to build world-class, locally developed solutions that can compete globally, while also tapping into the growing interest of global investors in India’s deep tech opportunity.

Call for Applications

Startup Stairs has opened applications for a limited number of high-impact startups to participate in Startup League 2026. This combines Top-Tier Investors, Deeptech Innovation and Government Support.

Interested founders, investors, and ecosystem partners can apply and learn more at: https://www.startupstairs.in/startup–league–2026

FIA President H.E Mohammed Ben Sulayem meets with Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajić

Discussions touched on how continued growth of Montenegro’s motorsport can help boost the economy

Dubai, UAE, Apr 23: FIA President H.E Mohammed Ben Sulayem has met with Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajić to strengthen cooperation between the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and Montenegro.

The meeting in Tivat yesterday provided an opportunity to discuss the FIA’s leadership across both motorsport and mobility, and to explore areas of collaboration aligned with Montenegro’s national priorities.

Motorsport and tourism were key topics of the meeting. The discussion touched on how the continued growth of Montenegro’s motorsport can help boost the economy, bring more visitors to Montenegro, and raise the country’s international profile, while ensuring events are run safely and sustainably.

Another key focus was Montenegro’s ambition to become a regional leader in road safety. President Mohammed Ben Sulayem shared how the FIA helps countries use data to better understand accidents, improve roads, and make driving safer.

This includes global tools like the FIA Road Safety Index (RSI), which helps track and measure progress using cutting-edge AI. Both leaders agreed that using data and new technology is essential to making real improvements for everyday road users.

The Prime Minister and President also spoke about the importance of keeping people safe online through the FIA’s United Against Online Abuse (UAOA) campaign. They highlighted the need to promote respect and protect users, especially young people and those involved in sport, from online abuse.

H.E. Mohammed Ben Sulayem, FIA President, said: “Montenegro is a country with clear ambition to lead in road safety. We are delighted to work with them to help bring that ambition to life by combining innovation, data, and collaboration.

“Together with the Auto-moto Association of Montenegro, we will work to deliver safer roads, more efficient mobility systems, and continued growth in motorsport, helping to build a future that is safer, more sustainable, and more connected for all.”

The FIA President has been in Montenegro to attend the FIA Region I Spring Meeting hosted in Budva by the Auto-moto Association of Montenegro.

Reaching its conclusion later today, the meeting brought together 102 FIA Member Clubs across Europe, the Middle East and Africa for three days of collaboration, innovation and knowledge sharing to advance safe and sustainable mobility for motorsport fans and road users.

Travel Planning and Booking Now Takes Minutes, Not Your Entire Weekend, with Yatra’s DIYA AI

Apr 23: You know the feeling. You’ve been dreaming about a Southeast Asia trip for months – maybe Vietnam, then a quick hop to Singapore, and back home. You open a tab to research on the best itinerary. Then a tab to search for flights. Then another for hotels. Three hours later, you’re overwhelmed, nothing’s booked, and you’ve closed all 23 tabs in frustration.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Yatra Online Limited, one of India’s leading online travel companies today announced a powerful new upgrade to DIYA, its AI-powered assistant giving travellers the ability to research, plan, customize, and book their entire journey  – even those spanning across multiple cities & countries, all within a single chat conversation. No juggling platforms & tabs. No losing context.

The Real Problem With Travel Planning

It was never really about finding flights or hotels. Those exist everywhere. The problem is that travel planning is a process – one that involves research, decisions, trade-offs, and constant back-and-forth, and no single tool has ever held that process together from start to finish. Until now.

One Conversation. Your Entire Trip. Powered with AI

With DIYA AI, travellers can now simply describe what they have in mind, and DIYA takes it from there. Ask it to suggest an itinerary. Tweak the number of days. Discover recommended activities. Pick a hotel from the options it surfaces. Swap a flight. And when everything feels right, you proceed with the bookings. Every step happens inside the same conversation, with DIYA holding the full context throughout.

Imagine typing: “Plan a 7-day trip covering Bali & Singapore for 2 people. I’ll start from Delhi on July 17.”

Within moments, DIYA maps out a complete, bookable day-wise itinerary – flights, hotels for each stop, curated local experiences, creating ready-to-book packages, all tailored to your trip.

It’s less like using a booking engine and more like having a well-travelled expert who recommends options in real time.

Including the Trips That Were Always Too Complicated to Plan

This flexibility extends to even the most complex journeys. Multi-city itineraries- the kind that used to require a weekend of research and a spreadsheet to coordinate are now just another chat conversation. Whether it’s a one-way journey across cities, a round-trip, or a full multi-country loop, DIYA is the world’s first AI assistant capable of end-to-end multi-city travel planning and booking within a single, continuous conversation.

Your Yatra, Your Way

This builds on DIYA’s existing capabilities as a generative AI-powered travel assistant that offers end-to-end travel planning, booking, and post-booking support across chat and voice in over 100 languages. Powered by advanced AI models including Google’s Gemini, DIYA leverages natural language processing, real-time integrations, and retrieval-augmented generation to deliver personalized, context-aware travel experiences.

Commenting on the development, Siddhartha Gupta, Chief Executive Officer, Yatra Online, said “The gap in online travel has never really been about access to options. There are plenty of those. The real problem has always been the effort it takes to turn those options into an actual trip. Travellers were left to do all the hard work themselves – coordinating across platforms, second-guessing their choices, and spending weekends on planning instead of looking forward to the journey. With DIYA, we are taking a major step forward in closing that gap. From the first message to the final booking, DIYA holds the entire experience together- intelligently, conversationally, and in real time. That, for us, is what making travel truly intelligent looks like.” 

“DIYA leverages the semantic intelligence of Large Language Models to deeply understand traveler intent and sentiment. It then applies advanced reasoning to craft highly personalized itineraries and dynamic travel packages-seamlessly identifying the best flights and hotels in real time. Users can continue to refine the package until it’s perfectly aligned with their needs,” adds Shakti Goel, Chief Architect and Data Scientist, Yatra Online

Since DIYA’s launch in August 2025, Yatra continues to expand its capabilities as a consumer-first AI travel assistant, moving closer to fully autonomous, end-to-end travel planning. By combining conversational intelligence with real-time execution across flights, hotels, and experiences, DIYA is redefining how travellers discover, plan, and book increasingly complex journeys in a faster, more intuitive way.

Your next adventure is waiting. Now, planning it takes minutes – not a weekend.

DIYA AI is available on Yatra’s consumer travel platforms across Web & App (Android & iOS).

EkoStay Crosses INR 40 Crore in Revenue, Scales to 150 plus Villas Across 12 plus Cities, Built Entirely Without External Funding

Mumbai,  April 23: At a time when growth in hospitality startups is often equated with capital raised, EkoStay is charting a fundamentally different trajectory, one anchored in profitability, operational discipline, and consistent guest demand.

The Mumbai-based alternative accommodation brand has reported ₹40 crore in revenue for FY 2025–26, marking a 43% year-on-year growth, while continuing to remain EBITDA-positive with ~10% margins.

But beyond revenue, the scale of the business tells a deeper story.

From its inception in 2018, EkoStay has grown into a network of 150+ professionally managed villas across 12+ leisure destinations, translating into hundreds of operational rooms and guest units serving travellers across India’s most in-demand holiday markets. The brand currently operates at an average occupancy of 56%, with a strong and growing base of repeat customers.

Looking ahead, the company is targeting ₹52+ crore in revenue in FY27, alongside a 30%+ growth trajectory and plans to scale its footprint to 220+ properties nationwide.

A Bootstrapped Model That Prioritised Fundamentals Over Funding

Founded by Husain Khatumdi, Sohail Mirchandani, Varun Arora, and Zishan Khan, EkoStay has been built without raising external capital, relying instead on internal accruals, measured expansion, and sharp operational control.

“Being bootstrapped meant every decision had to be efficient and accountable. That discipline is what continues to define how we scale today,” said Varun Arora, CEO & Co-Founder, EkoStay.

This approach has enabled the company to grow sustainably, while maintaining profitability in a segment often characterised by high burn and fragmented supply.

Repeat Behaviour, Not Discounts, Driving Growth

A defining lever of EkoStay’s growth has been repeat bookings and organic referrals, significantly reducing dependence on paid acquisition channels.

“Consistency in guest experience has been critical in building trust. A large part of our growth today comes from guests who choose to stay with us again or recommend us within their network,” added Sohail Mirchandani, COO & Co-Founder.

This repeat-driven model has allowed the brand to strengthen unit economics while scaling demand in a capital-efficient manner.

Scaling Supply Where Demand Already Exists

EkoStay’s expansion strategy has remained sharply demand-led, focusing on high-traction leisure micro-markets rather than aggressive, undifferentiated inventory addition.

The brand has seen particularly strong growth across South India, including the Nilgiris region, where demand for private villa stays continues to rise alongside evolving travel preferences.

“Our focus has always been on identifying destinations where demand is structurally strong and aligning our supply accordingly,” said Zishan Khan, Chief Acquisition Officer & Co-Founder.

A Standardised Yet Personalised Hospitality Model

Operating at the intersection of hospitality and vacation rentals, EkoStay combines the reliability of branded hospitality with the privacy and comfort of homestays.

Its model also enables homeowners to unlock value from their properties through professional management, without the operational complexities of hosting, creating a parallel supply pipeline that supports scalable growth.

What ₹40 Crore Represents

For EkoStay, this milestone is not just about topline growth.

It reflects a business built with zero external funding, zero dilution, and no reliance on debt, driven entirely by customer demand and internal reinvestment.

“₹40 crore is not just a revenue milestone, it validates a model that has been built sustainably, with long-term value creation at its core,” said Husain Khatumdi, Managing Director & Co-Founder.

Positioned for the Next Phase of Category Growth

India’s alternative accommodation segment is witnessing a structural shift, driven by rising domestic travel and increasing preference for private, curated, and experience-led stays.

With a strong foundation of profitability, repeat demand, and a growing supply base, EkoStay is well-positioned to capitalise on this momentum.

As the company scales towards 220+ properties and ₹52+ crore in revenue, its focus remains clear: disciplined growth, stronger operations, and delivering consistently high-quality guest experiences at scale.