yoCAPTCHA's acquisition from the eyes of the founder, Ankit Gupta
Ankit Gupta is today a happy man. What started as a college time experimentation with building consumer internet projects, to enter the world of digital advertising as complete novice, had ended in an early exit. Networkplay, a digital media firm, had acquired yoCAPTCHA yesterday. An exit is a validation of entrepreneurial success and I got in touch with Ankit to understand what this meant to him.
Didn't expect an early exit
Ankit wasn't expecting as early an exit as they have done with yoCAPTCHA. He says, “When you start a venture, a successful exit strategy is usually at the back of your head. However we didn’t expect to happen so quickly for us. See, we come from a product building background that goes back to our 3rd year of college. Furthermore, we are technologists at heart and the plan was to continually innovate on the product and this seemed like the best decision for us. It completely raises the bar and will allow us to promote the product in a bigger ecosystem.”
The company behind yoCAPTCHA, Innovese, was started in BITS Pilani, in their third year by Ankit, Neeraj Agarwal and Dhruv Sogani. Post acquisition, Ankit joins Networkplay as head of technology and Dhruv as head of business development," Ankit said.
No regret
Ankit believes that Networkplay is the right company to partner with. In fact their yoCAPTCHA was in an exclusive partnership with Networkplay. He says, "We wanted to deepen our ties with them. Also, since Networkplay's acquisition by Gruner and Jahr (G+J), they've also turned their focus towards being a technology company. I think in that way, this is an ideal partnership."
On return to entrepreneurship
While Ankit has committed the coming years to Networkplay, he’s still very keen on entrepreneurship. He says, “I’m only 25 and I will work on newer ventures for sure. In fact I do have a few ideas in my head. But for now, this deal opens up opportunities for yoCAPTCHA at an international level and we will also be building, new and innovative products at Networkplay.”
On a more personal level, Ankit believes that this acquisition has done his reputation a whole lot of good. "Apart from the fact that our stakeholders were adequately rewarded for their faith in us, this exit will also give me a lot of credibility as an entrepreneur, then next time I start up. And all of this wouldn't have been possible without our past investors and mentors, especially the ones at iAccelerator; Anuj Pulstya, Maneesh Bhandari and Pranay Gupta," he concluded.