Pocket Aces co-founder Aditi Shrivastava named as CEO

Digital entertainment company Pocket Aces on Monday announced the elevation of co-founder Aditi Shrivastava to the newly created position of Chief Executive Officer. Previously, Shrivastava spearheaded the company’s revenue expansion, set up its influencer management division, and also led the growth of Dice Media, a premium content studio.

Pocket Aces co-founders Ashwin Suresh and Anirudh Pandita will continue to remain shareholders and members of the Board of Directors of the company, while running Loco, a game streaming platform incubated at Pocket Aces that was recently spun-off into a separate entity, a statement said. Shrivastava will also continue to be a Board member, it added.

Pocket Aces has three business lines – a social distribution that houses some of India’s largest social channels such as FilterCopy, Dice Media, and Gobble; Clout (talent manager in the Indian digital ecosystem); and Studio Business, where the company is currently producing 12 series for release across various over-the-top (OTT) platforms. “In addition to building out monetisation for the social distribution business and overseeing the growth of Clout, Aditi also put together an impressive slate of shows for the Studio business.
“Under her new mandate as CEO and supported by a capable leadership team with a healthy mix of industry experience, first-principles thinking, and creative innovation, Aditi is all set to write the next chapter in the Pocket Aces growth story,” Pocket Aces co-founder Ashwin Suresh said.

Anirudh Pandita said Pocket Aces leadership team led by Shrivastava, has the right mix of industry veterans and new age digital-first thinkers to execute on the exponential growth opportunity.

Pocket Aces reaches over 50 million people on a weekly basis, clocking over 700 million video views every month. The company has grown its revenue 7x in the last three years and is on track to become profitable this year, the statement said.

“We have clear visibility of our content strategy and revenue leading us to profitability, and some very exciting new initiatives launching later this year as well,” Shrivastava said.

Pranav Pai, Founding Partner at 3one4 Capital – a large investor in Pocket Aces – said Pocket Aces has reimagined the digital entertainment model. “The company’s content channels are vertically integrated, from the creators up to the audience, and now leverage their position of strength and scale to continuously innovate and expand the frontier,” Pai added.

Pocket Aces has a team of over 180 professionals across Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi. Major investors in Pocket Aces include Sequoia Capital, 3one4 Capital, DSP Group, and others. CNBC TV 18