Indian telco Bharti Airtel buys stake in blockchain firm Aqilliz founded by former Mindshare SEA CEO

Indian telco company Bharti Airtel has acquired a strategic stake in Aqilliz, a Blockchain as a Service Company under the Airtel Startup Accelerator Programme, subject to applicable statutory approvals. Airtel aims to deploy Aqilliz’s advanced blockchain technologies at scale across its adtech (Airtel Ads), digital entertainment (Wynk Music and Airtel Xstream) and digital marketplace (Airtel Thanks App) offerings.

Based in Singapore and founded by Gowthaman Ragothaman (pictured), former WPP global client lead and GroupM global blockchain solutions lead, the company is said to have developed a patented hybrid blockchain platform, Atom that integrates differential privacy and federated learning on a distributed digital ledger. This allows brands to create secure and consent-based solutions to engage with customers in a rapidly evolving digital economy that’s becoming increasingly decentralised.

Ragothaman was CEO of Mindshare SEA for over a year and also held roles such as chief operating officer, global chief strategy officer, global client chief at Pepsico during his time with GroupM. 

Airtel Digital's CEO, Adarsh Nair, said the relentless focus on innovation is also enabling the company to unlock new growth engines within Airtel. "Blockchain technology is maturing and we see its application across areas such as adtech, creator economy, and loyalty programmes. We are thrilled to have Aqilliz join our Startup Accelerator Programme and be part of Airtel’s digital innovation factory," Nair said.

Ragothaman said the team is extremely excited to be part of Airtel's digital innovation play. "Legacy customer engagement, ad tech and marketing technologies are built for centralised databases. The future of the digital economy is already pivoting to managing value exchanges between brands, platforms and the consumer," he explained.

According to him, Aqilliz’s patented technology will enable Airtel to capture and carry this value exchange in the form of consent and provenance across the digital supply chain. The Airtel Startup Accelerator Programme invests in early-stage start-ups working on technologies that have adjacencies to Airtel’s business offerings. The programme gives startups the opportunity to deploy their technologies and applications at a massive scale, which includes more than 340 million retail customers and over a million businesses. In addition to funding, the programme offers mentorship from Airtel’s leadership team and access to Airtel’s global strategic partners.

Recently, Airtel launched the "Airtel India Startup Innovation Challenge" in partnership with Invest India. Early-stage Indian startups were invited to demonstrate solutions for 5G, IoT, cloud communications, digital advertising and digital entertainment. Airtel is headquartered in India and has over 480 million customers in 16 countries across South Asia and Africa. 

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