Eloelo Group hires Vinay Juluri as CFO to strengthen its leadership team

Eloelo Group, which operates the social gaming and live entertainment platform Eloelo, the microdrama platform Story TV, and the online friendship app Connecto, has appointed former Mensa Brands CFO Vinay Juluri as its group CFO to strengthen its leadership team.

In this role, Juluri will work alongside the leadership team to strengthen the finance function, lead the overall financial strategy, and provide counsel across various areas.

"Over the last 5 years, Eloelo group has scaled considerably to build out Bharat’s entertainment ecosystem across streaming, micro dramas, and AI-powered companions," said Eloelo Group founder Saurabh Pandey in a statement "Having known him from his Myntra days, I am very confident of the value he adds to our company as we balance hyper growth with profitability and sustainable unit economics."

Where has Vinay Juluri worked before?

An IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta alumnus, Juluri has over 17 years of experience across functions such as mergers and acquisitions, investor relations, corporate governance, regulatory compliance, corporate finance, financial planning and analysis, taxation, accounts and finance.

He was the founding member of the House of Brands startup Mensa Brands (now known as BRND.ME) and served as its CFO for about four years. Juluri was also formerly the Head Of Business Planning for Myntra’s House of Brands and worked with the Flipkart-owned online fashion store for about six and half years.

"This is an exciting time to be in the consumer internet and building platforms for Bharat. With our products like Eloelo, Connecto & Story TV we are just beginning to scratch the surface of all possibilities as we look to scale up further with robust processes while still maintaining the Day 0 mindset,” Juluri said in a statement.

Eloelo in a nutshell

Started in July 2020 by former Flipkart executives Saurabh Pandey and Akshay Dubey, Eloelo has raised a total of over $50 million funding from investors such as Play Ventures, Courtside Ventures, Griffin Gaming Partners, MIXI Investments, Kalaari, and Lumikai.

The company's flagship product Eloelo allows creators to host interactive video and audio live streams, build communities and monetise directly from their audiences through virtual gifts that can be converted into physical money. As of April, Eloelo had 90 million users, including 1.5 million paying users.

Story TV surge

Last month, microdrama platform Story TV announced that it had crossed 5 million users within the first two months of its launch, with the ambition of reaching 100 million users in the next year.

This growth will likely be driven by a surge in content on the platform. Story TV states that it has introduced 200 microdramas in the past two months and aims to launch 800 more shows in the next year.

Micro dramas, short serialised dramas of one to two minutes designed for mobile viewing, are rapidly gaining popularity in India. The surge has spurred the launch of more than a dozen apps from companies such as Kuku FM, Pocket FM, Dashverse, and ShareChat.

Gaming platforms Zupee and WinZO have also recently introduced microdramas on their respective platforms following the government's ban on real-money games.