Startup Deep Dive : Chaupal — Revenue up 140.7% to Rs 62.4 crore in FY25 with Rs 10.4 lakh of profit

Chaupal, the Chandigarh streaming service built for Punjabi, Haryanvi and Bhojpuri viewers, grew revenue 140.7% to ₹62.4 crore (about $6.5 million) in FY25 and kept exactly ₹10.4 lakh of it as profit, as per the financial summary published by Inc42. It did this in a year when the industry it feeds on was shrinking: Punjabi cinema’s box office fell 43.0% to ₹116 crore in calendar 2025, according to the Ormax Media report cited by The Hollywood Reporter India.

That is the odd shape of this company. It is a subscription business with a 0.2% net margin, funded almost entirely by a Punjabi music label rather than venture capital, that has managed to put the two biggest Punjabi films ever made on its app within three months of their theatrical runs. This piece traces how a satellite movie channel became the default second window for Pollywood, what the filings actually say about the money, and why the same structure that made it work is also its biggest exposure.

Quick facts

What they do

Chaupal sells an ad-free streaming subscription to people who want films and web series in three north Indian languages that the national platforms treat as an afterthought. The core buyer is a Punjabi-speaking household in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi or Chandigarh, and increasingly the diaspora in Canada, the UK, the UAE, the US and Australia. The product is a library that, by the founder’s own April 2024 estimate to Adgully, receives 70.0% to 75.0% of all Punjabi theatrical releases after their cinema run, plus in-house originals and cheaper single-language packs for Haryanvi and Bhojpuri viewers. It is distributed through its own apps and, since September 2023, as an add-on channel inside Prime Video, Airtel Xstream Play, Tata Play Binge, Watcho and JioTV.

The origin

Sandeep Bansal did not arrive at streaming from technology. He arrived from television. On 26 March 2016 he launched Pitaara TV, a satellite channel that Wikipedia and the trade press describe as the first dedicated Punjabi movie channel, operated through Paul-E-Commerce Private Limited. The channel’s stated purpose, per its Wikipedia entry, was to serve the growing nationwide audience for Punjabi films and music with a dedicated home for Punjabi cinema, and it later partnered with Xiaomi, Humble Motions and the Josh app for distribution.

A movie channel teaches you two things quickly. One, the Punjabi film catalogue is thin and the rights are fragmented, so whoever aggregates them holds real leverage. Two, the audience is not confined to India. Punjabi films open in Canada, the UK and Australia on the same weekend as Ludhiana, and the diaspora pays in dollars. A linear channel can only monetise that through carriage deals. A streaming app can bill the household directly.

Speaking to indiantelevision.com on launch day, 28 August 2021, Bansal said the team had worked “for the last three years” to bring Chaupal to life, which dates the decision to build an OTT to roughly 2018, two years after the channel went live. The legal vehicle, Bosna Digital Entertainment Private Limited, was incorporated on 29 May 2021 with Bansal as sole founding director and a paid-up capital of just ₹9.62 lakh (IndiaFilings). The name, Bansal said in the same launch coverage, signals a gathering of like-minded people who come together for a good time, the village chaupal recast as an app.

The launch itself, covered by Adgully on 30 August 2021, was deliberately global from day one. Chaupal went live simultaneously in India, the US, Canada, the UK, the UAE, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Mauritius and the EU, with 12 originals, 50 exclusive titles and a back catalogue of over 300 films, and a stated cadence of two new web series and two new films every month.

The struggle years

Chaupal launched into the worst possible moment for a small subscription service. In 2021 every Indian OTT was discounting, Disney+ Hotstar and Amazon Prime Video were bundling regional catalogues into telecom plans, and a new Punjabi platform had to convince households that had never paid for Punjabi content to start now. The early originals, titles such as Please Kill Me (24 September 2021) and Dustbin (8 October 2021), were modestly budgeted thrillers, not tentpoles.

The first structural weakness showed in how it was financed. When Chaupal raised its one and only outside round on 13 July 2022, the lead investor was not a fund. It was Speed Records Entertainment Private Limited, the Punjabi music label, joined by Whiteboard Capital and angel Paras Arora, with Bansal putting in his own money, as per Tracxn. The round totalled $3.77 million on Tracxn’s count, or $4.80 million on Inc42’s, at a reported post-money of ₹70 crore. Set that against the $21.46 million that Inc42 records for rival Stage, and Chaupal’s war chest was a fifth of the size of its closest north Indian competitor. There would be no marketing blitz. Growth would have to come from content rights and distribution deals.

The second wobble was at the parent. On 27 February 2023 Pitaara TV disappeared from Sky’s electronic programme guide in the UK, according to BizAsia, which noted that such removals usually follow either a missed payment to Sky or a technical fault. The channel was back on 1 March 2023 and no cause was ever confirmed, but for a group whose whole diaspora strategy depended on being visible on British and Canadian screens, a two-day blackout on Sky was a reminder of how thin the margin for error was.

The third setback was one the founder disclosed himself. In April 2024, nearly three years after launch, Bansal told Adgully that Chaupal was reaching only 10.0% to 15.0% of the Punjabi-speaking audience it was built for, and set a target of 70.0% to 75.0% within two years. That admission came alongside the reveal that most Punjabi theatrical releases were already flowing to the platform. In other words, Chaupal had solved supply and had not yet solved demand.

The trademark record hints at the friction of building a brand in a crowded word. QuickCompany lists nine applications for “Chaupal” and related marks filed between 2020 and 2024 across several classes, with statuses ranging from registered to opposed and objected. None of this was existential. But none of it was easy either.

The turning point

The turning point arrived in a single week in September 2023, and it had two halves.

On 29 June 2023, Carry on Jatta 3 released in cinemas. Made on a budget of around ₹15 crore, it grossed an estimated ₹100 crore worldwide and became, at that point, the second highest-grossing Punjabi film ever, as per the box office trackers cited on its Wikipedia page. On 7 September 2023, just ten weeks later, the film premiered on Chaupal. The day before, on 6 September 2023, afaqs reported that Amazon had added Chaupal to Prime Video Channels in India at an introductory add-on price of ₹599 a year, with Carry on Jatta 3 flagged as the launch draw. The biggest Punjabi film of the decade and the biggest distribution pipe in the country landed on the same weekend.

The numbers on either side of that event tell the story. Tofler’s public summary shows Bosna’s total revenue grew 152.7% in FY24, which puts FY23 total revenue in the region of ₹10 crore by derivation. FY24 revenue, the year containing that September, was ₹25.9 crore (Inc42). FY25 revenue was ₹62.4 crore. Roughly six-fold in two years, without a single further funding round.

The pattern then repeated. On 27 June 2024 Jatt & Juliet 3 released, produced by White Hill Studios and Speed Records, with Dinesh Auluck of Speed Records among the credited producers. It grossed over ₹107 crore worldwide and took the crown as the highest-grossing Punjabi film of all time. On 19 September 2024 it premiered on Chaupal. The label that had funded the platform was now producing the hits that filled it.

The money behind it

Chaupal’s capital story is unusually short, and unusually revealing.

• Seed round, 13 July 2022: $3.77 million (Tracxn) to $4.80 million (Inc42); lead investor Speed Records Entertainment Private Limited; also Whiteboard Capital, angel Paras Arora, and Sandeep Bansal (Tracxn).
• Reported post-money valuation: ₹70 crore as of 13 July 2022 (Tracxn). No subsequent priced round is on record, so this remains the last public mark.
• Total outside funding to date: the same single round. Inc42’s April 2026 list of the top 20 funded OTT startups shows Chaupal at $4.8 million against Stage at $21.46 million and Pocket FM at $851 million.
• Board link to the backer: Satvinder Singh, appointed a director of Bosna Digital Entertainment on 28 September 2022 (IndiaFilings), also sits on the board of Speed Records Entertainment alongside Dinesh Auluck (Tofler). Film Companion’s October 2019 profile names Balvinder Singh, Dinesh Auluck and Satwinder Singh as the three partners who built Speed Records from around 2004, releasing 200 to 250 songs a year.
• What Speed Records changed: it converted Chaupal from a channel’s side project into the streaming arm of the most powerful music-and-film group in Punjab. Speed Records Entertainment itself booked operating revenue of ₹75 crore to ₹100 crore in FY24 with net profit up 86.5%, per Tofler, so the backer had cash flow of its own.
• What Whiteboard Capital and the angels changed: an outside institutional signature on the cap table, which matters if the company ever raises from a fund. Neither investor has publicly disclosed the size of its cheque.
• Offshore vehicle: Tracxn also lists Chaupal Global Pte. Limited, a Singapore entity (UEN 202110748K), consistent with billing diaspora subscribers outside India.

The absence of a Series A is the point. Stage, the Haryanvi and Rajasthani rival, spent ₹115 crore on advertising in FY25 to reach ₹111 crore of revenue and a ₹28 crore loss, as per Entrackr’s February 2026 report. Chaupal could not afford that playbook, so it never tried it.

How it makes money

Money in is almost entirely subscriptions, sold at several price points and through several doors.

• Direct plans on the App Store as of September 2026: Mobile Only ₹199; Half-Yearly ₹599; Premium Yearly ₹999; Gold Yearly ₹1,199; Haryanvi Only ₹49; Bhojpuri Monthly ₹49; UAE two-screen HD monthly ₹299; Canada personal ₹499; EU personal ₹399 (Apple App Store listing).
• Earlier tiering, February 2024: ₹149 a month mobile-only, ₹449 for six months, ₹999 a year multi-device, and ₹2,999 a year for a worldwide plan (The Streaming Lab).
• Headline annual price in May 2026: ₹999, with promotions to ₹899 (afaqs).
• Bundled distribution: Prime Video Channels add-on from 6 September 2023 at an introductory ₹599 a year (afaqs), plus placement inside Airtel Xstream Play, Tata Play Binge, Watcho, JioTV and ZEE5 Global (Wikipedia; Adgully, April 2024). Aggregators keep a share of the subscription, which Chaupal has not disclosed.
• Advertising, new in May 2026: a “first-screen monetisation” model with adtech partner Frodoh that places masthead, spotlight, takeover and branded-row units on the discovery screen rather than inside playback. Early advertisers named by afaqs were Wonder Cement and Ambuja Cements, targeting Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

Money out is content and technology, though the filings do not break it down. What we know is the scale: FY25 total expenses of ₹62.3 crore against ₹62.4 crore of revenue (Inc42). Total assets rose 64.0% to ₹93.1 crore in the same year, which is consistent with content rights being capitalised and amortised rather than expensed on acquisition, though the company has not published that accounting policy.

The part people get wrong is the word “ad-free”. Chaupal’s own app copy still promises it, and afaqs’ May 2026 report says premium playback will stay uninterrupted. The ads live on the home screen, not in the film. That is a distinction advertisers accept and subscribers barely notice, and it lets the company add a second revenue line without repricing the first.

The numbers

Bosna Digital Entertainment is a private company, so the figures below come from MCA-filed accounts as summarised by Inc42 and Tofler. Neither publishes the full P&L, and the two agree on direction but not always on line items.

• Revenue growth: 140.7% in FY25 over FY24 (Inc42); Tracxn records a one-year revenue CAGR of 141.0% and places FY25 revenue in its ₹50 crore to ₹100 crore band.
• Cost growth: total expenses rose 109.0% in FY25 (Inc42), slower than revenue, which is how a thin profit emerged.
• Balance sheet: total assets of ₹93.1 crore at 31 March 2025, up 64.0% (Inc42); Tofler’s FY24 summary shows total assets up 30.7% and borrowings down 18.6% year on year.
• Capital: authorised ₹5.01 crore, paid-up ₹9.62 lakh; last balance sheet filed for 31 March 2025 (InstaFinancials); auditor Rajiv Goel & Associates (Tracxn).
• Headcount: 63 as of 31 May 2026 (Tracxn); Inc42 shows 69, up 4.6% over the prior 90 days.
• Reach: Chaupal does not publish subscriber numbers. The Indian App Store shows a 4.6-star rating from 869 reviews (September 2026); the founder’s last public reach estimate was 10.0% to 15.0% of the Punjabi-speaking audience (Adgully, April 2024).
• Market backdrop: India’s digital subscription revenue grew 60.0% to ₹16,300 crore in 2025, with 216 million paid video subscriptions across 143 million households, and is projected to reach ₹24,800 crore by 2028 (FICCI-EY report, via Storyboard18, 24 March 2026).

For scale, Hoichoi, the Bengali platform that is the sector’s profitability benchmark, told The Core it runs on roughly ₹100 crore of revenue and has been marginally profitable for four years. Chaupal in FY25 was about 60.0% of Hoichoi’s size and, on the Inc42 figures, at break-even.

Where the money comes from

Chaupal does not publish a segment or geography split. What can be reconstructed from disclosed pricing, partnerships and peer data looks like this.

• By product: subscriptions were effectively 100.0% of revenue until the advertising layer launched in May 2026; the ad line is too new to appear in any filed year.
• By language: Punjabi carries the premium. The Haryanvi-only and Bhojpuri monthly packs are priced at ₹49, a quarter of the ₹199 mobile-only Punjabi-inclusive plan (App Store, September 2026). The catalogue mirrors that: Adgully reported in April 2024 that 70.0% to 75.0% of Punjabi theatrical releases reach Chaupal, while Bhojpuri and Haryanvi titles are a smaller, cheaper library.
• By geography: separate plans exist for the UAE (₹299 a month), Canada (₹499) and the EU (₹399), with the diaspora served from the launch markets of the US, Canada, UK, UAE, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Mauritius and the EU (Adgully, August 2021). Chaupal has not said what share of revenue is overseas. Hoichoi, the closest published comparator, earns 30.0% of revenue outside India and Bangladesh (The Core), and Broadcast and CableSat’s June 2026 survey puts overseas viewing at roughly 25.0% of Indian OTT consumption.
• By channel: direct app billing, Prime Video Channels (from September 2023), telecom bundles via Airtel and Jio, and DTH aggregators Tata Play Binge and Watcho (Adgully, April 2024). Aggregator revenue arrives net of the partner’s share.

The surprise is in the timing. Chaupal’s FY25 (April 2024 to March 2025) more than doubled while Punjabi theatrical box office was heading into a slump: calendar 2025 closed down 43.0% at ₹116 crore gross, with Punjabi and Marathi cinema losing the most share of any language (Ormax, via The Hollywood Reporter India, 23 January 2026). A second-window platform normally suffers when the first window shrinks. Chaupal grew because the two biggest Punjabi films ever made both happened to arrive in that stretch, and both came to it. That is a concentration of luck as much as strategy, and it is the reason the next section exists.

The risks

Chaupal is private and publishes no risk factors, so these are the mechanisms visible from the outside.

• Tentpole dependence in a shrinking market. The growth years coincided with Carry on Jatta 3 (about ₹100 crore worldwide, 2023) and Jatt & Juliet 3 (over ₹107 crore, 2024). Punjabi cinema then fell 43.0% to ₹116 crore gross in 2025 (Ormax). Fewer hits means fewer reasons to subscribe, and the platform’s own margin, ₹10.4 lakh on ₹62.4 crore in FY25, leaves no cushion if one year’s slate is weak. Expenses grew 109.0% in FY25; if revenue growth slips below that, the company is loss-making again.
• Related-party concentration. The lead investor, Speed Records Entertainment, shares a director with Chaupal (Satvinder Singh, per Tofler and IndiaFilings) and co-produced the platform’s biggest exclusive. That alignment delivers content today. It also means Chaupal’s access to the best Punjabi films depends on one group’s goodwill and on that group continuing to prefer its own OTT over a larger cheque from Netflix, Prime Video or ZEE5. It also makes a clean outside Series A harder to price.
• Regulatory takedowns of Punjabi content. On 3 July 2026 ZEE5 released Satluj (formerly Punjab ’95), starring Diljit Dosanjh; on 5 July 2026 it was pulled from ZEE5 India under Section 69A of the IT Act, and a government committee then backed the block on sovereignty grounds (Al Jazeera, 14 July 2026; Medianama, 7 July 2026). Chaupal was not the platform involved, but it is the platform whose entire catalogue sits in the language and region regulators were scrutinising. Medianama’s 7 July 2026 analysis argued the episode will make streamers more cautious about politically sensitive Punjabi titles, which narrows the range of originals a Punjabi-first service can safely commission.
• Piracy and platform dependence. Every Punjabi hit leaks to Telegram within days, as the Satluj episode again showed (Al Jazeera). Meanwhile a growing share of Chaupal’s subscribers come through Prime Video Channels, Airtel and Tata Play, where the aggregator owns the customer relationship and the pricing conversation. Chaupal has not disclosed what share of its base is direct.

The takeaway

The transferable lesson from Chaupal is about the order of operations. Most streaming startups buy demand first, with marketing, and hope supply follows once they have scale. Stage spent ₹115 crore on advertising for ₹111 crore of revenue in FY25 and lost ₹28 crore doing it. Chaupal did not have that option, so it secured supply first. It built a movie channel, then a rights relationship with the most powerful label in the market, then a global app, and only then a mass distribution deal with Prime Video. When the hits came, there was nowhere else for them to go.

The cost of that sequence is that Chaupal is a distribution business wearing a startup’s clothes. It grows when Pollywood grows and stalls when it does not. Its FY25 profit is a rounding error and its valuation has not been tested since July 2022. But it exists, it is at break-even on the published numbers, and it did not need ₹100 crore of someone else’s money to get there. In a category where the default outcome is a well-funded loss, that is a result worth studying on its own terms.

Frequently asked questions

Who owns Chaupal OTT?

Chaupal is operated by Bosna Digital Entertainment Private Limited, a Chandigarh company incorporated on 29 May 2021 and led by founder and managing director Sandeep Bansal. Its only outside funding round, in July 2022, was led by Speed Records Entertainment Private Limited, with Whiteboard Capital and angel investor Paras Arora also participating, as per Tracxn.

Is Chaupal profitable?

Barely. Inc42’s summary of the FY25 accounts shows revenue of ₹62.4 crore, expenses of ₹62.3 crore and a profit after tax of ₹10.4 lakh, a net margin of 0.2%. FY24 revenue was ₹25.9 crore; the FY24 bottom line has not been published in rupee terms.

How much does Chaupal cost?

As of September 2026 the App Store lists a Mobile Only plan at ₹199, a Half-Yearly plan at ₹599, Premium Yearly at ₹999 and Gold Yearly at ₹1,199, plus Haryanvi-only and Bhojpuri monthly packs at ₹49 and separate plans for the UAE, Canada and the EU. It is also sold as a Prime Video Channels add-on, which launched at ₹599 a year in September 2023.

What is Chaupal’s relationship with Speed Records and Pitaara TV?

Sandeep Bansal launched the Punjabi movie channel Pitaara TV on 26 March 2016 and built Chaupal out of it, launching the app on 28 August 2021. Speed Records Entertainment, the Punjabi music label, led Chaupal’s 2022 seed round and shares a director, Satvinder Singh, with Bosna Digital Entertainment. Speed Records also co-produced Jatt & Juliet 3, which streamed exclusively on Chaupal from 19 September 2024.

How does Chaupal compare with Stage and Hoichoi?

Stage reported FY25 revenue of ₹111 crore and a loss of ₹28 crore after spending ₹115 crore on advertising (Entrackr). Hoichoi runs on about ₹100 crore of revenue and has been marginally profitable for four years (The Core). Chaupal’s FY25 revenue of ₹62.4 crore was smaller than both, but it reached break-even on a total funding base of under $5 million.

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• Inc42, Chaupal OTT company profile and financials pages (FY24 and FY25 revenue, expenses, PAT, assets, headcount), accessed September 2026
• Inc42, Top 20 Funded OTT Startups In India 2026, April 2026
• Tofler, Bosna Digital Entertainment Private Limited company page (FY24 growth ratios, directors, capital), updated July 2026
• Tofler, Speed Records Entertainment Private Limited company page (FY24 revenue range, directors), accessed September 2026
• IndiaFilings and InstaFinancials, Bosna Digital Entertainment Private Limited MCA records (CIN, director appointment dates, capital, balance sheet date), accessed September 2026
• QuickCompany, Bosna Digital Entertainment Private Limited trademark filings, accessed September 2026
• Tracxn, Chaupal company profile and funding pages (seed round of 13 July 2022, investors, ₹70 crore valuation, headcount at 31 May 2026, Singapore entity), accessed September 2026
• indiantelevision.com, Pitaara TV launches multi-regional streaming platform Chaupal, 28 August 2021
• Adgully, Pitaara TV launches multi-regional streaming platform Chaupal globally, 30 August 2021
• Adgully, Sandeep Bansal on how Chaupal TV is redefining Punjabi entertainment, 17 April 2024
• afaqs, Prime Video adds Punjabi streaming service Chaupal, 6 September 2023
• afaqs, Chaupal takes the non-intrusive ad route to OTT monetisation, 14 May 2026
• The Streaming Lab, Chaupal OTT and a tribute to International Mother Language Day, 21 February 2024
• Apple App Store (India), Chaupal – Movies & Web Series listing (plans, rating), September 2026
• BizAsia, Pitaara TV removed from Sky EPG (updated), 28 February to 1 March 2023
• Film Companion, How Speed Records became the most powerful music company of Punjab, 15 October 2019
• Wikipedia, Chaupal (streaming service); Pitaara TV; Carry on Jatta 3; Jatt & Juliet 3; Satluj (Punjab ’95), with their cited box office and release sources, accessed September 2026
• Entrackr, OTT platform Stage’s revenue jumps 6X to Rs 111 Cr in FY25, 14 February 2026
• The Core, How Hoichoi became India’s most profitable regional OTT (podcast transcript), accessed September 2026
• The Hollywood Reporter India, 2025 India box office crosses historic ₹13,000 crore (Ormax data), 23 January 2026
• Storyboard18, Digital subscriptions jump 60% to ₹16,300 crore (FICCI-EY report), 24 March 2026
• Broadcast and CableSat, Regional OTT in India: the current frontier of streaming, June 2026
• Al Jazeera, Why is India blocking film on a man who counted Punjab insurgency killings, 14 July 2026; Medianama, Zee5 removes Punjab 95 as OTT censorship concerns grow, 7 July 2026

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