By Saumya Tewari

NetworkPlay’s founder and former CEO Rammohan Sundaram has launched his second entrepreneurial venture ‘PlatformPlay Media Ventures’. The company will facilitate entry of digital media players looking to make a footprint in India. Led by Rammohan as Chairman and Managing Director, the venture will have majority stakes from SVG Media. Manish Vij, Founder and CEO, SVG Media would join the Board of PlatformPlay. The company is expected to roll out multiple services related to digital advertising as well.

Commenting on the launch Ram said, “Last four plus years as an entrepreneur were filled with tremendous learning but I still have unfinished business with the digital space. With PlatformPlay, we would be the first of its kind firm focussing on “India Entry” for various international digital brands looking at either entering or expanding their footprint in the market. India is an important market for all growth focussed companies, and we at PlatformPlay have significant experience in launching large properties in the country, thus making us the preferred India entry partners.SVG Media’s involvement as an investor adds to the belief of the idea. Domestically, we are focused on bringing the right audience for various categories of advertisers through some exclusive relationships that we are signing off now.”

Smile Vun Group Media is the digital media network leading businesses such as Tyroo, PrecisionMatch, DGM and Velocity in Performance, Digital Data and Display respectively. It is a joint venture between Manish Vij's Vun Group and Harish Behl's Smile Group.

Speaking on the launch, Manish Vij said, “SVG Media has a clear focus on investing and acquiring digital assets and being the launch pad for successful digital media businesses. Having concluded our transaction with DGM last year, we invested in PrecisionMatch and launched Velocity as an audience based network within the group. We were sure of investing in PlatformPlay when we first about it from Ram. Ram’s skills, passion, commitment and energy are known to everyone in the industry. The fact that PlatformPlay will be led by Ram is enough to guarantee success.”

On the association with Manish, Ram added, “I have known Manish for over a decade and the understanding we have is immense. With the Indian digital advertising market headed to a 2B USD mark by 2016-17, it is going to see a lot of international entrants in the next few quarters. We are well poised to make the most of it with a few announcements already round the corner and aggressive focus on bringing web and mobile publishers which have engaging solutions for brands to capitalise on.”

Ram's last entrepreneurial venture NetworkPlay has been acquired by Gruner+Jahr, a media company which is a part of Germany's Bertelsmann group. Before the acquisition, the company was a Capital18 and Webchutney-backed venture which operated a digital ad network and published a digital marketing site, Imediaconnection.in.