Find Info, Share Reviews, Get Deals!

MetroMela is all about that and much more. As a city-centric website, it will help you find relevant local information, give you a platform to share your views and experiences, and help you benefit from the best deals running in town.

Information needs can be met in ways more than one – whether it is through family and friends, publications or even the Internet. But when it involves questions related to living in a city, there aren’t many sources that you can bank on. That’s simply because the available information is irrelevant, subjective or not delivered to you the right way.

Well, that’s what MetroMela is working towards – delivering user-centric local information the way the user wants it to be delivered. So we scan the city, prune the available data and provide you relevant and objective information, through Metro's Best and Our Views. And if you wish to be tipped off on the best bargains in town, there are Hot Deals as well.

So if you are looking for best restaurants in town, you have it all here. Good schools for your kids? Look no further. How about some spa treatment this weekend? MetroMela will help you zero in on one. What’s more? We deliver it via both the online and the mobile media. So you don’t have to worry about getting information even while you are on the move.

Apart from all of that, we encourage you to share your experience with the rest of the community. It could be about a great buy from a city shop or even about an unpleasant experience that your kid had at his/her activity center. This is our way of ensuring that information on the site is not limited to what we give but also includes the general experience of the rest of the community.

So go ahead. Find out how MetroMela can help you take better decisions with respect to Shopping, Food & Entertainment, Health & Wellness and Family & Kids. Let us know if it helps you connect with the city and enhance your lifestyle – ‘cause that’s what MetroMela is all about!

Sateesh Andra - Founder/Board Member

Sateesh Andra is a Venture Partner at DFJ India. He currently is on the board of directors at MetroMela, mGinger, Pressmart, and Cleartrip. With hands-on start-up experience and in-depth knowledge of the dynamics of VC funding, he has effectively leveraged India to create technology products for global markets.

Sateesh started his Silicon Valley career in the early nineties and has an extensive background in general management, marketing, product strategy, and technology development.

Prior to DFJ, Sateesh was the founder and CEO of Euclid Software, a leader in the IT Governance space. Previously he has also served in product marketing and engineering leadership roles at Tsqware (Conexant), LSI Logic, VLSI Technology (Philips), and Wipro.

He holds U.S. patents in Communications and Networking and has published several articles about Business - IT Alignment. He is actively involved with TiE-ISB Connect, an annual networking event for entrepreneurs and investors.

Sateesh holds a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering.

I Syam Prasad Reddy - Board Member

Syam Prasad Reddy is the promoter and CEO of Indu Projects Ltd, an infrastructure and real estate company. Involved in spearheading IVRCL Infrastructures previously, he is now the force bent on guiding Indu to the one billion dollar mark.

Under his leadership, Indu has transformed from being a contracting company to a leading player in the infrastructure and real estate domain, with the business focus being on urban infrastructure. Integrated townships, commercial/industrial infrastructure, malls, IT parks and irrigation projects comprise a major part of the company’s profile. Syam, through his company, also funds research in the aforesaid space at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Syam Prasad has done his engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad in India.

Sanjay Anandaram - Advisor

Sanjay is a founding Partner of JumpStartUp Venture Fund set up in 2000 to invest in early stage, innovative companies that leveraged India. He led investments in Jareva Technologies (acquired by Veritas/Symantec), Netkraft (acquired by Adea Solutions), Aarohi Communications (acquired by Emulex) and HelloSoft.

Sanjay has 18 years of industry experience including significant international experience involving new business creation and business development in India, US, Asia, Middle-East and Africa. Prior to founding JumpStartUp, Sanjay founded Neta Inc., a venture capital backed Silicon Valley software startup that was acquired by Infoseek (Disney). He is also an Adjunct Professor at INSEAD, Singapore where he conducts the Business Plan Workshop apart from being a charter member of TiE Bangalore.

Sanjay holds a Bachelor’s (with Honours) degree in Electrical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Calcutta and a MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Let's give you a brief insight into how this team was built. Sateesh Andra, the founder of this company and its board member moved lock, stock and barrel to Hyderabad, India after around a decade abroad. So did Pankaj Joshi, the founder and VP of marketing and business strategy, after some years abroad. That was the time when they were looking for information that could make life easy for them and their family in a new city. MetroMela, therefore, was born out of their needs.

Barkha was working with a publication when she met Sateesh for an official assignment. Ideas clicked and she joined in to handle content for MetroMela. During the same time, Sateesh pitched the idea of MetroMela to Syam (both have been alumni of JNTU, Hyderabad), who heads Indu Projects, an infrastructure company. In less than an hour of their meet, Syam agreed to invest in the company. And then in those days, MetroMela was also trying to get feedback for the site from some of its beta users.

MetroMela also found an advisor in Sanjay Anandaram, founding partner of JumpStartUp Venture Fund. Sateesh and he have been old friends since their Wipro and JumpStartUp days together. Synergies happened and MetroMela got a business strategy advisor with cross-border experience in him.

Then came along Chiddu, who handles technology initiatives here. Pankaj and he studied at IIT and having lived in the US and Malaysia for years, he understood the need that the site was trying to meet. Through references, MetroMela found a Chief Operating Officer in Nitin. This alumnus of INSEAD had been city-hopping for quite some time and therefore jumped at the concept that MetroMela was built around.

So that's how MetroMela's story began. Read on to know more about its individual team players.

Pankaj Joshi - Founder/VP Marketing & Business Strategy

With his strong Marketing and Business Development skills in the Mobile and Internet domains, Pankaj’s role comprises managing the marketing and business strategy initiatives of the company.

Prior to MetroMela, Pankaj was Director of Marketing with HelloSoft, India, a startup developing next generation Internet and mobile communication product suite such as Voice over IP, Instant Messaging, Presence and Group list Management. He was also with DataPath Systems, USA, for several years.

Pankaj has an MBA from INSEAD, France, an MSEE from University of Hawaii, USA and a Bachelor’s degree in Technology from IIT Kharagpur, India.

Nitin Chowdhary - Chief Operating Officer

Nitin Chowdhary has more than 15 years of experience in the technology industry across various roles in sales, business development, marketing, strategic planning and engineering.

Most recently, Nitin was Vice President, Account Management at AppLabs Technologies, a testing services specialist company, funded by Sequoia Capital where he ran a team of Account Managers focused on running large accounts in United States. Prior to that Nitin was Vice President, EMEA Sales at AppLabs Technologies. He has also worked in managerial positions at Kanbay(CapGemini) and GE Aircraft Engines (GE Transportation) before.

Nitin has an MBA degree in general management from INSEAD, France and a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Computer Science) from MS University of Baroda.

Chidambaran Subramanian - CTO/VP Engineering

Chidambaran (Chiddu) joined the company in 2007 and comes with diverse technology management capabilities. He is repsonsible for the technology behind MetroMela

Chiddu has extensive experience in architecting and managing diverse applications at leading IT services organizations including Infosys Technologies. His expertise lies in enterprise applications and large scale Internet applications. In his 14 years of experience, he has served as the CTO of Insynchro Malaysia and as the principal architect of Atesto Technologies (InfoVista).

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur in India.

Barkha Shah - Founder/Content Head

Barkha has a journalism background and is responsible for the content that goes up on the site.

She earlier worked with Business Standard, a financial newspaper as a Senior Correspondent. Her two-year stint with the publication comprised a good mix of both hard and soft news write-ups, though she primarily covered Insurance and Information Technology. The World of B-Schools, Routes: The Gateway, The Hindu and India Tribune are the other publications that she has contributed to.

Barkha has been a triple gold medalist during her Post-graduation in Communication and Journalism from Osmania University, Hyderabad in India.

Manoj Tiwari - VP Sales

Manoj has around 16 years of progressive experience predominantly in enterprise sales & business development in India, Asia and North America. He has been involved in new market development, channel management, customer relationship management, partner management, contract negotiations and deal closure.

Manoj started his sales career with IT&T (IGATE) here as a new business initiative he was responsible for north India sales of large format printing and scanning instruments to global engineering, procurement and construction companies and consultancies. He successfully led the effort and created a strong client base. Later he joined Odin; an Ireland based company and was responsible for direct enterprise sales as well as channel development for Macintosh products and solutions.

In Euclid (e4e) a company in infrastructure management domain, which Manoj co-founded, he was responsible for its India sales operations, later he worked as MD Metrikus India (Persistent) also responsible for India and US Sales operations for its business intelligence and performance management suit of products. During his tenure in Metrikus, he built strong sales partnerships with two of the biggest India SIs and some USA based domain solution companies.

Before joining MetroMela he was with Persistent Systems as GM Business Development targeting both US and India markets.

Manoj has a bachelors in electronics.