Earlier this week, Aman Gupta’s new venture, OFF/BEAT, announced its first funding with Bessemer Venture Partners, and the internet went crazy thinking how a company could bag a funding of Rs 100 crore within a month of being launched in the market. More than that, a question that loomed prominently for everyone was, ‘What exactly does the company do?’
What is OFF/BEAT?
According to the company, it is a venture built for a new generation of Indian consumers who are digitally native, aspirational and increasingly influenced by identity and culture as much as by product.
The company further said that it aims to operate at the intersection of culture and technology, with a particular focus on how artificial intelligence is reshaping how brands are built, discovered, and scaled.
However, officially, until now, there is no clarity on what Off/Beat is.
And based on that curiosity, the company has launched its latest marketing campaign.
A website titled “offbeatkartakyahai”, or what does Off/Beat do? That’s all it took for the LinkedIn influencers to jump to the opportunity and talk about how brilliant a campaign it is.
What does the website highlight
The landing page of the website is just a completely black screen with this text. The campaign presents a series of fictional, satirical product and service concepts designed to mimic startup-style offerings, each framed with exaggerated claims and dark humour.
One of the concepts, titled “BackIt: Gunda Delivery in 10 Minutes,” depicts a service offering on-demand “gunda” assistance, with tiered vehicle options such as Thar, Scorpio and G-Wagon. It references surge pricing during festivals and claims that workers are “verified freelancers” rated above 4.5 stars.
Another concept, “Canned Air from AQI-10 Zones,” markets bottled air sourced from hill stations. It claims the air is sealed at altitude and available in variants such as “Coorg Morning” and “Ladakh Lite.” The campaign states that 14,000 units were sold in Delhi NCR during November, with messaging that plays on urban pollution concerns.
A third offering, “SpeakIt,” is positioned as a service where professionals deliver difficult messages on behalf of users. Examples include firing employees, negotiating salaries, or communicating personal decisions to family members.
Another concept, “Zero Calorie Chhole Bhature,” promotes a version of the dish where the “bhatura is air” and the “chhole have feelings.” It references a proprietary process that removes calories and positions the product as both nutritionist-approved and psychologically challenging, while also noting that customers often order actual food afterwards.
The sequence ends with a message acknowledging user engagement, stating that viewers who clicked through multiple concepts are encouraged to explore further, followed by a disclaimer-style line suggesting that the content should not be taken at face value.
After this, we land on a form which asks for a CV, basic personal details and a couple of hypothetical questions. At the end, we still don’t know what OFF/BEAT does. Users on the internet were quick to relate this marketing technique to that of Kusha Kapila when she was in the process of launching her own brand. User reactions indicate that the campaign has left many viewers confused about what the company actually does, with several saying they came away with more questions than answers.