Punt Partners, the tech start-up co-founded by Sidharth Rao and Madhu Sudhan in September 2022, has announced the appointment of Abhinav Sinha and Rohan Naterwalla as founding members to head their creative stack.
Both of them will be based out of Mumbai and will report to Sumera Dewan, president of the agency’s creative arm, Punt Creative.
Sinha brings with him over 15 years of experience, having worked with diverse industries such as Mullen Lowe Lintas, Disney’s Star Wars, LEGO, and Amazon Game Studios. He also co-founded Newlit Technologies and Immersion Technologies, launching a VR cognitive assessment platform.
Talking about the trend of client willingness to invest in immersive experiences – from virtual, augmented, extended reality – to a greater demand for metaverses, and the rise of generative AI applications, Sinha says there is a transformative shift happening over the past 18-20 months in the advertising business.
“That’s what excites me about what we’re building here at Punt Creative. By introducing and integrating best practices from around the world – like playtesting, brown boxing, vertical slicing, realm upskilling, and retrospectives, for example – and merging them with existing processes for creativity,” he notes.
Meanwhile, Naterwalla joins the agency from Dentsu Webchutney where he has worked on key clients such as Hershey’s, Tinder, MakeMyTrip, Platinum Guild, Facebook, Aditya Birla Capital, and Bajaj Allianz. He has also worked on some of the agency’s most celebrated pieces of work like “The Responsible Manhole” [TVS], “Most Reported Trailer” (Thappad), “HERSHE” (Hershey’s), and “Code Name: URI,” amongst many others.
In a statement, Rohan says that while Sidharth and Madhu might have started Punt, they deputized the team to co-imagine what this ideal agency setup could look like.
“For us, that meant surgically redefining the very concept of a ‘creative team.’ At Punt Creative, therefore, our creative team comprises more than just writers and designers; we also sport a very diverse pool of strategists, community managers, technologists, and developers, all working together to help our clients interact with their audiences like never before. After all, it’s 2023; ideas that don’t own the metrics for clients are ideas for agencies and not clients,” he explains.
Sumera Dewan, president of Punt Creative, says that both Sinha and Naterwalla bring a distinctive blend of technological expertise and advertising knowledge to the agency.
In December 2022, Punt Partners raised its first round of funding from individual investors from the world of media, advertising, marketing, and startup founders. The round also saw participation from funds like Point One Capital, Namma Capital, and Real Time Angel Fund, along with the creative agency Talented.
Some of the investors include known names in the industry, such as Anand Jain (co-founder, CleverTap), Ashish Hemrajani (CEO, BookMyShow), Deep Kalra (founder, MakeMyTrip), Harish Bahl and Manish Vij of Smile Group, Kunal Shah (founder, CRED), Phanindra Sama (Founder, Redbus), Rajan Navani (Founder & CEO, JetSynthesys), Santosh Desai (MD, Future Brands) and Sarbvir Singh (CEO, Policybazaar) among others.