PVR launches new venture V-Pristine to provide home care services

Gurugram-based film exhibiting giant PVR Cinemas has ventured into customised cleaning and disinfecting services under its new vertical — V-Pristine. 

The vertical will operate like a startup and provide cleaning solutions for both commercial and residential categories. The standards of cleaning are expected to replicate the ones at cinema halls. 

This venture is a child of COVID-19, says Gautam Dutta, CEO, PVR, in an exclusive interview with YourStory’s Daily Dispatch. Cinema halls were the first category to be shut down during the pandemic-induced lockdown and the last ones to open up as the lockdown protocol insisted on social distancing. 

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According to the CEO, the company experimented with several “out-of-the-box” ideas during the pandemic. PVR recently launched microwave popcorn, PopMagic, which is now available on food aggregating platforms like Zomato and Swiggy. The aggregating platforms were also used for the brand’s foray into a cloud kitchen business. 

PVR’s latest venture, V-Pristine also came into being because of these brainstorming sessions. With the home care services platform, PVR is looking to meet the rising demand for safety and sanitary requirements in homes and commercial establishments. 

“We scanned the market and we realised there isn’t a single brand today which gives this service. While I am aware that there are some online brands which are giving housekeeping services but that we were not, clearly just in housekeeping,” explains Gautam. 

V-Pristine provides a variety of services, including wall vacuuming and top shelves cleaning among others. Before undertaking a cleaning project, a team from V-Pristine speaks with the house owners to understand the concerns. 

Services are currently being tested in the beta version, according to Gautam. V-Pristine has covered over 1,365 households in the last 75 days. 

“We do not say housekeeping. We say home-care because that was the ethos we needed,” says Gautam. At PVR, he adds, the staff is addressed as cinema care as opposed to housekeeping. 

V-Pristine currently operates in Delhi NCR with nine teams and will be rolling out services to six new cities in the next 45 days. The decision to expand the service to other cities will be taken after looking at responses from the six cities, the CEO said. 

Primarily a multiplex brand, PVR is seeing a promising inflow of cinema watchers to its theatres. 

“We were so far hearing about this whole term called revenge travelling, revenge shopping and now we are seeing revenge watching. People are coming back,” says Gautam. 

According to him, the inflow has increased to 115 percent of pre-COVID levels in Punjab with the South market also picking up. The release of Sooryavanshi on 5 November is expected to bring a large number of movie buffs to PVR theatres.