The American company, Create Music Group it has acquired Nirvana Digital a Mumbai based company that is one of the largest YouTube enterprises partners in India. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but this is the first of a $50 million (approximately Rs 373 crore) investment Create is making in India and the broader region in the next several years.
Nirvana Digital which delivers more than 20 billion minutes of video each month has a subscriber base north of 200 million. The company provides monetisation, distribution, and rights-management services to artists, labels, film and television concerns and other content owners, including one of the largest spiritual organisations in the world — The Art of Living; Rap/Hip Hop superstar — Bohemia; and Regional Music Powerhouses — Vats Records and Team Films.
“We’ve been looking for the right way to build our business in India for some time now, and after being introduced to the Nirvana Digital’s co-founders and seeing the parallels between our two companies, we felt the right move was to acquire them and supercharge our entry into India with one of its most forward-thinking new media companies,” said founder and CEO Jonathan Strauss.
As part of the acquisition, Nirvana Digital co-founders, Manu Kaushish and Pinakin Thakkar have been named President, Create Music Group India and Chief Operating Officer, Create Music Group India, respectively.
With the acquisition, Create Music Group now has one of the world’s largest viewership, exceeding 25 billion streams per month. India has the most active YouTube users at 225 million users; the most across the world. The acquisition of Nirvana Digital allows Create Music Group’s international clients to access India’s userbase while introducing the American company’s many digital offerings like content creation app, Flighthouse. Established in 2015, Create Music Group was the first to offer a service that allow artists to track all of their streaming earnings — through YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music — on a daily basis, up to the minute. Based in Los Angeles, the company has been founded by Jonathan Strauss and Alexandre Williams.
Founded in 2010, Nirvana Digital operates a YouTube MCN for content from India that specialises in the creation of original video content as well as the distribution and monetisation of video content from the Indian market across YouTube.
