
Bureau brings ex-PayPal, Visa Vanita Pandey as Chief Marketing Officer
Bureau, an identity and risk decisioning platform, has appointed Vanita Pandey as Chief Marketing Officer to spearhead the company's global go-to-market (GTM) engine and power its next phase of growth. Vanita will lead the next wave of Bureau's innovation-led marketing—from pioneering AI-driven GTM strategies and executing demand generation engines, to strengthening the company's position as the go-to digital trust partner across both mature and high-growth markets spanning the Americas, Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
Vanita's appointment follows Bureau's recent Series-B round led by Sorenson Capital and PayPal Ventures, and the addition of Chief Analytics and Risk Officer Venkat Srinivasan — milestones that underscore Bureau's momentum as it expands its global identity and risk decisioning footprint. Vanita brings 15+ years of deep domain expertise at the intersection of digital identity, fraud prevention, and financial services. Previously, she has held senior marketing roles at US-based Arkose Labs, Simility (acquired by PayPal), ThreatMetrix (acquired by LexisNexis), Visa, Capital One, and most recently LATAM-based CAF—where she consistently built impactful marketing programs, drove international expansion, and shaped go-to-market narratives in complex, regulated industries.
Vanita's appointment serves a critical purpose in Bureau's mission to become the de facto trust infrastructure for the digital economy. She will closely work with the product and sales teams to improve Bureau's product positioning and develop a thought leadership platform that anticipates market inflection points and emerging risk vectors. Her tightly aligned strategy would be crucial in building compelling narratives that establish Bureau as the preferred identity and risk intelligence partner among fintechs, banks, and digital-native businesses. Bureau's Founder & CEO Ranjan R Reddy said in a statement, 'In a market where trust drives growth, clarity and narrative are strategic advantages. Vanita knows how to turn complex risk and identity challenges into stories that win customers and shape industries. Her leadership will be key as we scale globally and become the first call for companies serious about fighting fraud and managing risk. Her proven ability to build global demand engines from the ground up will be instrumental in the realization of Bureau's vision.'Speaking about joining Bureau, Vanita said, 'What excites me is Bureau's mission-critical approach to scale—driven by the aim to future-proof the digital economy. I look forward to scaling a global brand that doesn't just react to market shifts but operates ahead of them, shaping how businesses worldwide think about identity, risk, and trust.'
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Mint
an hour ago
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Starlink mostly recovers from ‘longest' global network disruption; company says ‘outage was due to failure of…'
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Mint
an hour ago
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Want "pin code-level granularity" in data - brands tell quick delivery firms
BENGALURU , NEW DELHI : Bengaluru/New Delhi: In India's fast-growing world of quick commerce, the real power lies not just in speedy deliveries and wholesome product portfolios, but in the data behind them. As major platforms expand private-label lines and monetize analytics, small consumer brands crib they are being shut out of critical insights on who's buying, where, and why. With limited visibility into customer behaviour, product performance, and advertisement effectiveness, these brands claim they are being priced out of planning and left behind in one of the country's most competitive new retail frontiers. From identifying best-selling products, timing of high demand, and deciding the right marketing budget, this data is crucial for brands to cut down unnecessary spending, improve operational efficiency, and keep up with cut-throat competition from brands. In the end, revenue preservation is the goal. This also signals the growing friction between sellers and marketplaces, as both try to build their own businesses with minimal expenditure and maximum output. Zepto and Blinkit have been doubling down on their private label efforts, with categories like staples, packaged food, and household items fetching higher margins. The founder of a Delhi-based kidswear brand, which sells baby accessories like feeding bottles and sippers through quick commerce channels in the top 5 cities, is worried that inadequate planning of inventory and pricing could seriously dent its revenues. 'On some of these quick commerce platforms, I can't see the distribution channels: where my ads are being shown, what kind of people are seeing them, how many are adding products to their cart, or proceeding to checkout," the founder said. A Delhi-based skincare brand founder concurs. 'Who is our customer? What's their age bracket? Within a city, which pockets are buying? That's the kind of insight we want. These platforms are sitting on pin code-level granularity." Quick commerce currently contributes about 5% to the company's revenue, but the share is growing fast. The firm expects the channel to account for 15-20% of its overall revenue in the next 18 months. 'On our D2C website, we track everything - conversion rates, drop-offs, repeat purchase percentages, and cohort behavior across months. If we could get similar insights from quick commerce, it would help us understand customer behaviour so much better," the founder added. To be sure, some platforms are making an attempt to share relevant information. In May, Zepto launched Atom, a paid analytics platform meant for providing access to relevant data points at a subscription fee. In an emailed response to Mint's queries, Zepto said it is already sharing anonymized, aggregated insights with over 100 partner brands through tools like Zepto Atom and Consumer Persona. 'Brands can now tap into real behavioural patterns like repeat purchase frequency, time-of-day affinities, category loyalties, and even cart correlations, all without compromising user privacy. These insights have helped brands optimize everything from product bundles to creative messaging and geo-targeted launches," Zepto said. Zepto Atom's pricing starts at around ₹30,000 per month, or 0.5% of the previous month's gross merchandise value (GMV), whichever is higher, and can go up to several lakhs depending on scale, said the D2C brands. Blinkit, on the other hand, charges listing fees (around ₹25,000 per product, typically credited to the brand's ad wallet) and generates revenue through commissions, ad placements, and user subscriptions like Blinkit Prime. 'Looking ahead… we're enabling brands to simulate buyer personas, run precision marketing experiments, and even validate new stock keeping units (SKUs) through city-specific sampling and surveys," Zepto added. Queries on the issue sent to Swiggy and Zomato did not elicit a response. The lookout for data and analytics comes at a time when brands are increasingly banking on quick commerce platforms for sales, with the channel accounting for the fastest growing one for many small as well as legacy brands. In the September quarter of FY25, Maggi-owner Nestle India saw 60% of its domestic e-commerce sales come from quick commerce. Nearly 7% of Mamaearth parent Honasa Consumer's business now comes from quick commerce and the firm expects its quick commerce market share to outperform that of e-commerce soon. 'We did the trial subscription (for the analytics), but don't plan to renew," said the founder of a Mumbai-based jewellery brand. 'For a growing brand, spending ₹30,000 to ₹2 lakh a month just to access data, we feel platforms should already be sharing is a big ask." 'It would make sense for us if most of our revenue came from quick commerce, or even just one specific platform," said the founder of the kidswear brand mentioned above, adding 'But right now, juggling three quick commerce platforms, along with e-commerce and logistics isn't the solution." Third parties to the rescue Brands are now seeking assistance from third-party analytics firms to help forecast demand to help plan their quick commerce actions better and reduce wastage. Startups like Inflexor Ventures-backed Clickpost, Info Edge Ventures-backed Gobblecube, and global analytics company Actowiz are at the forefront of providing revenue intelligence for brands active on quick commerce platforms, assisting them with demand forecasting and other data points like identifying best-selling products, shifting consumer preferences, fast-moving package sizes and pricing points, as well as improving ad performance. 'The information shared by marketplaces is limited and often delayed, as platforms require adequate data sets to be able to crunch it into relevant insights. We have enabled neighbourhood-level data that is so granular that brands can understand how their strategy should be shaped to suit geographical differences in demand and behaviour," said Naman Vijay, founder and chief executive of e-commerce intelligence platform Clickpost. Bengaluru-based Clickpost, which last raised $6 million from Inflexor Ventures, Athera Partners, and Riverwalk Holdings in April 2024, introduced a new feature called Prism last week, aimed at offering detailed quick commerce insights to brands at a dark store-level through API integrations with quick commerce platforms. Consumer behaviour on quick commerce often varies with regions, with different states and cities showing affinity to different brands, product sizes, and even time of purchase. 'Dark store-level data is too nuanced for brands to figure out themselves," Vijay added. Gobblecube, which raised $3.5 million from Info Edge Ventures and Kae Capital earlier this month, believes consumer brands often struggle with making sense of basic data that is crucial for decision-making. 'Quick commerce has unleashed an impressive amount of growth for small direct-to-consumer brands. However, true value lies in knowing the consumer well which is best done through real-time data," said Gobblecube's co-founder and chief executive Manas Gupta. The shift comes at a pivotal time for the quick commerce industry that is expected to triple in size by 2027, reaching ₹1.5-1.7 lakh crore, as per estimates by Kearney. The trade channel has expanded beyond being an impulse purchase mode, with 93% of sales coming at the expense of modern trade, e-commerce and kirana stores. 'Data isn't just for measuring performance. It's essential for planning, predicting demand, and connecting with customers. If brands don't know which products are selling quickly, where demand is growing, or how often items run out of stock, they're working in the dark. In today's fast-paced market, having the right data at the right time is crucial for keeping stock levels accurate, running effective marketing, and protecting sales," said Nitin Jain, managing director at consulting company Protiviti India Member that is part of Proviti's global network. The tiff between sellers and marketplaces in Indian e-commerce is not new. Several restaurants that joined food delivery platforms Swiggy and Zomato in its early days often complained about protective data sharing practices. In January, the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI) criticized the aggregators' move to unfairly use customer demand data to model their private label offerings, thereby giving them an unfair advantage over restaurants. 'They have all our data, and they don't share it with us. They know exactly who our customers are, while we face consumer masking. They can easily divert traffic to their apps and sell similar products, like samosas or momos, under their private labels," NRAI president Sagar Daryani had told CNBC-TV18 channel earlier this year. Another personal care brand founder noted that inventory management is tough, especially with details of product movement generally under wraps. 'I don't have control over which part of Mumbai, Delhi, or Bengaluru my products are being sold in. That's a big limitation, because visibility without control limits strategy," the founder said. According to Proviti's Jain, as quick commerce grows, it is becoming more obvious that better teamwork between platforms and sellers is needed. 'Right now, many platforms keep their data closed off, which limits how efficient the whole industry can be." Naturally, the demand for revenue intelligence is picking up. Gobblecube currently helps break down data that is available to brands through platforms, however, it intends to expand its operations by enabling API integrations with platforms soon. 'The ecosystem is evolving rapidly. As the industry grows, hyperlocal behaviour can be understood better, resulting in efficient operations and better planning," said Gobblecube's Gupta. Proviti's Jain noted that setting up dedicated teams just for quick commerce is also becoming more prevalent. 'We're also seeing brands start to build hybrid data systems, pulling information from platforms, delivery partners, and third-party tools to get a clearer view of demand and deliveries. Looking ahead, there's a strong need for industry-wide rules around data sharing and transparency, similar to what happened in organized retail years ago."