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Marathi star Swwapnil Joshi to start his own national OTT platform

The actor, who starred in both seasons of the popular web-series Samantar, has partnered with entrepreneur Narendra Firodia for the project.

Swwapnil Joshi and Narendra Firodia

Yesterday, Swwapnil Joshi had said he would be announcing something major on Twitter today. It turns out that the actor is set to start his own national over-the-top (OTT) platform in partnership with producer and entrepreneur Narendra Firodia.

In a note shared on Twitter, Joshi said he had been planning this venture ever since COVID-19 hit the country in March 2020 and the whole of India went into a lockdown.

“For about a year I have been working on a dream with a few like-minded and brilliant individuals to create India’s own OTT, where the world can experience our country’s rich talent, strong culture and wide range of emotions,” he said.

Joshi added, “Almost a year later, I have an answer to my [question] ‘what next and why?’ Today I am happy to announce that my company Tamora Digiworld Pvt Ltd will soon launch a national OTT. Yes, read that again. Soon!”

Firodia recently announced his OTT platform called Letsflix. With this deal, Letsflix will merge with Joshi’s firm. “He [Firodia] was to launch a much anticipated platform called Letsflix in various regional languages. We are happy to announce that Letsflix will now merge with Tamora Digiworld Pvt Ltd and we will jointly launch this single platform,” said Joshi.

He added that the launch will happen “sooner than you expect”.

Firodia said he decided to collaborate with Joshi instead of competing with him. "The lockdown saw the launch of many OTT platforms catering to various genres of content," he said. "India is a huge market for OTT players and it has been proved in the past few years.

"But since regional languages were not getting due participation on these platforms, I decided to launch Letsflix," he continued. "After announcing Letsflix, when I was in the process of launching it, I learnt that Swwapnil Joshi was thinking on similar lines. We met and decided that instead of competing with each other, joining hands would help us launch it at a greater level."

Joshi is due to be seen next in the Marathi horror film Bali, directed by Vishal Furia.