No more casting couch, Mumbai-based Castiko all set for action

Mumbai-based Castiko, a talent marketplace, is aiming to streamline casting directors' jobs of managing talent better.

With the coming of the internet, the entertainment industry has made a quantum leap. It has become easy for artistes, musicians, actors et al to produce and distribute their work more efficiently.

The media and entertainment sector in India has been growing at a steady pace, and according to a PwC report, it is expected to exceed $40 billion by 2020. The report states that the growth has largely been driven by “increasing digitisation and higher internet usage.”

Cashing in on this is Castiko, a project management tool and platform for casting directors to connect with actors.

When Founder Shiv Tandan, 26, moved from Singapore to Mumbai, to make movies, he realised there was a bigger opportunity in the entertainment and arts space. “The way arts is being made, produced, and distributed is outdated. Technology has moved much faster, whether it is the use of digital camera or distribution through digital media,” he says.

Castiko’s product reimagines how casting directors manage their workflow. Shiv, who spent days shadowing casting directors, realised that there is no management tool, no recruitment pipeline, and no understanding of what could be better about the entire process.

For the thousands of actors looking to be cast, Castiko provides easy access to casting directors. “It is like LinkedIn for casting directors,” adds Shiv. This not only democratises the entire process but also eliminates the casting couch to a certain extent.

They have a subscription model where casting directors pay for a suite of services, while actors pay for the introductions. The startup that was incubated at Axilor in Bengaluru now has in its kitty three paying casting directors and 100 actors on a monthly basis.

Shiv, who leads a team of four people, is an industrial and systems engineering graduate from NSU in Singapore. He is now in the race with other similar talent marketplaces that are making their presence felt in India.

From the better-known ones like Culture Machine and OML to new startups like Getsetgig, GreenRoom, and Talenttrack, the entertainment scene is surely rocking.

Watch Shiv talk about Castiko and how he wants his startup to be at the centre of the arts scene in India in the video below.