A.R. Rahman and Shekhar Kapur launch a Digital Media Startup, receive an investment of 27 crore from Cisco

by on February 15th, 2012 3

Music maestro A.R. Rahman and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur are going to launch a new Digital media venture.

The company named ‘Qyuki’, will provide creative content creators with an online platform where they can showcase their work, collaborate with others and discover new opportunities to share their work with the world. For instance, if one user publishes the lyrics of a song on the platform, others could score the music or help the user package  the song for launch in the market.

“Qyuki will not be as inert as Facebook or as passive as You-Tube. We want to shepherd people’s creativity to create new films and score music collaboratively,” Shekhar Kapur told in an interview with the Economic Times.

This new startup, that is expected to go live in May this year, has already received Rs 27 crore investment from Cisco Systems, one of the world’s largest technology companies.

“We invest to learn. Software tools, cloud computing, analytics and low-cost innovation for emerging markets are areas we focus on,” said Joydeep Bose, Cisco’s MD for investments and acquisitions (Asia-Pacific and Japan, excluding China).

A chance encounter with the the Cisco team at a workshop in the US  helped Kapur, transform his startup idea into a technology-backed venture. In June last year, he roped in Rahman as an investor. At present, Cisco is the only venture investor in Qyuki, but the company valued at around Rs 160 crore, based on the power of this idea, and the experience of the team in the entertainment business.

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