Bodhi Tree Multimedia is a content factory that is trying to become a content owner. Founded in 2013 by two television veterans, it spent its first decade as a reliable producer of shows for India’s biggest broadcasters and streamers, churning out over 5,000 hours of programming. The recurring idea that now explains everything else is a deliberate pivot: in a country that creates more than 50,000 hours of content a year but where creators own less than 1% of the intellectual property, Bodhi Tree is moving from a work-for-hire model to one where it co-creates, retains rights, and then monetises that IP across every screen and format for years.
Business segments
A single content engine, organised as a family of creator-led studios, that is systematically shifting its output from commissioned projects to a library of owned intellectual property - and building the distribution and technology tools to make that library pay.
1. Creator-led studios: the IP factory floor
A collection of specialised studios, each with a distinct creative voice, generates the multi-genre, multi-language content that feeds the entire business.
- A studio for every audience - the business is not a single production house but a network of studios, each targeting a different content niche. Madlabs Alpha, led by the creator of the OTT hit "Asur", makes bold, premium series and films for youth audiences. Guroudev Bhalla Screens, a legacy name in Hindi television, has produced over 20 acclaimed family dramas for major broadcasters like Colors and Star. Amit Khan Content Hub adapts a library of 100-plus best-selling pulp fiction novels into thrillers for OTT and audio. Moving Images, a digital-first lab, focuses on unscripted, short-form IP for YouTube and social platforms.
- The creative leads are the moat - each studio is built around a proven creator with deep industry relationships and a track record. Gaurav Shukla (Madlabs Alpha) is a specialist in mythology and crime storytelling. Guroudev Bhalla is known for emotionally resonant dramas that drive high television ratings. Manisha Sharma (Moving Images) is the former Chief Content Officer for Hindi Mass Entertainment at Viacom18, where she oversaw iconic shows like Bigg Boss and Kaun Banega Crorepati. This structure ties creative talent to the company, making the pipeline more predictable.
- Commissioned work still pays the bills - roughly 80-85% of revenue currently comes from the legacy model where a broadcaster or OTT platform pays the company a fee to script, produce, and deliver a show, with a profit margin built into the budget. This provides a stable base while the company builds its IP catalogue, and repeat commissions from platforms like Netflix, JioStar, and SonyLIV confirm reliable delivery.
- The IP model is the growth engine - the remaining 10-15% of revenue comes from a newer model where the company invests its own money to create content, retains the intellectual property rights, and then licenses the finished product to platforms nationally or internationally. This unlocks revenue windows that a pure production house never sees: syndication to other platforms after the first window, brand integrations, FAST channels, and international sales. The stated goal is to reach a 50-50 split between IP and commissioned revenue within three years, targeting 50% IP contribution in two years on the way.
- A "fail fast" pipeline keeps costs low - for digital IPs, the company releases multiple projects per month, quickly retiring those that do not find an audience and scaling up those that do. The model requires minimal initial investment because it starts with a proof-of-concept or pilot created in partnership with talent, defraying costs before attaching monetisation engines like branded content and sponsorships. This is how a property like Little Adda Company, a YouTube channel, crossed 728,000 subscribers and 100 million views in just four months.
2. Bodhi Tree Ventures: the monetisation engine
A dedicated sales and syndication arm that turns finished content into recurring revenue across platforms, formats, and geographies.
- Selling beyond the first window - launched as a separate business unit in April 2025, Bodhi Tree Ventures is responsible for extracting value from content long after its initial release on a single OTT platform. It syndicates shows to other platforms, sells format and adaptation rights, and builds FAST channels (free, ad-supported streaming TV) that generate a steady stream of advertising income from library content.
- A global salesforce for Indian stories - the division drives syndication and digital sales in over 100 countries, leveraging relationships with platforms that span television (ZEE TV, StarPlus), OTT (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video), and digital (YouTube, Meta). This means a show produced in Hindi or Tamil can generate revenue from a Bengali-dubbed version on a regional platform or a subtitled version sold to an international streamer.
- The Lehren stake is a shortcut to a digital backbone - the company holds a 20% strategic stake in Lehren Networks, a vintage film and celebrity content library founded in 1987. The real prize is access to Lehren’s YouTube Content Management System, a tool that allows Bodhi Tree to protect its own IP on the platform, claim ad revenue on unauthorised uploads, and build an in-house network of digital channels. This turns a passive library into an actively managed, revenue-generating asset.
Bodhi AI
An in-house technology platform that uses artificial intelligence to make content production faster and cheaper, compressing timelines and cutting costs across every project.
- Casting in under a minute - the first operational tool, CastMatch AI, is a chat-based platform that lets a user describe a character and instantly searches over 15,000 actor profiles to produce a shortlist, reducing a process that once took two to three hours to under 60 seconds.
- A roadmap to compress the entire production line - CastMatch is the first of a planned 12 AI agents that will cover the full content lifecycle from pre-production to post-production. The company’s target is to use these tools to cut script-to-screen timelines by 30% to 40% and reduce overall content costs by 20% to 40%, while also enabling faster rollout of the same show in multiple languages and formats.
Group structure and partners
A parent company with controlling stakes in its key creative studios, strategic minority investments in distribution, and a plan to build physical production infrastructure.
- Studios are subsidiaries, not departments - the flagship creative engines are structured as separate legal entities with Bodhi Tree holding a controlling stake. This includes a 50.01% stake in Moving Images Studios and the newly launched Madlab Alpha Private Limited, ensuring creative leads have ownership and accountability while the parent consolidates the IP and revenue.
- A strategic stake in a digital library - the 20% shareholding in Lehren Networks, acquired via a share swap, gives the company a direct interest in one of India’s largest vintage content archives without having to build one from scratch.
- Building the physical factory - the company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding worth Rs. 500 Crore with the Government of Assam to build a Global Media and Cultural Hub in Guwahati, its second major production facility after the Dharmaveer Media City project in Thane, Maharashtra, which is planned across 1,000-plus acres with studios, theatres, and a skill-development institute.