OOH is a $42B Market But Still Run on Whatsapp and Stuck in 90s.
He Spent 28 Years in Ad. Then Built the Platform to Escape It.
What on earth is the OOH?
You see them everywhere. On highways, at bus stops, in malls, at airports.
Those massive billboards screaming at you to buy soap, visit Dubai, or download the latest fintech app.
OOH = Out-of-Home advertising. Everything you see when you step outside your house.
And it's a ₹59 billion industry in India alone. $42 billion globally.
Here's the crazy part: This massive industry still operates like it's 1995. This media is non-operational for a year
When Booking a Billboard Feels Harder Than Booking a Flight
This is Bandra Focal - Asia's largest billboard in Mumbai.
One ad placement here costs crores. But here's the kicker: it delivers 4 million sees every week.
(Better than LinkedIn's algorithm, right? 😁)
But if you wanted to book this billboard, here's your nightmare journey:
This is how a ₹59 billion industry operates. In 2025.
Santosh Smith lived like this for 28 years.
The 28-Year Grind That Finally Found an Answer
Santosh has been in media sales since the WhatsApp didn't exist.
Television ads. Print ads. And for the last 20 years - outdoor advertising.
He's sold premium billboard inventory in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore. He knows every major media owner personally.
But every single day, he watched the same broken process:
He realized outdoor advertising gets stuck for only 4 reasons:
No single place to see all billboards
No instant way to book them
No clear pricing or transparency
No data on how many people actually saw the ad
While Google and Facebook built trillion-dollar ad empires with data and automation, outdoor advertising - the world's oldest medium - was stuck in the stone age.
The "AirBnb / OYO for Billboards"
DOOHIT is India's first full-stack AdTech platform for Out-of-Home advertising.
Just Like AirBnb / OYO a private marketplace for outdoor advertising.
For Media Owners:
List all your billboards and digital screens in one place
Manage availability and pricing in real-time
Get instant bookings without phone calls
Track campaign performance and optimize inventory
Generate automated invoices and proof-of-play reports
For Advertisers:
Discover 1000+ billboards across top Indian cities instantly
Compare pricing, locations, and audience data
Book campaigns with transparent pricing
Get real-time analytics on reach and impressions
Manage multi-city campaigns from one dashboard
Everything that took weeks of calls and spreadsheets now happens in minutes on one platform.
Wait, it’s not just a Listing platform!
DOOHIT is not just a listing site. It runs the whole campaign, end to end:
Discover – Search by city, format, audience. See real-time availability.
Book – Instant booking with transparent pricing. No back-and-forth.
Run – Campaigns auto-scheduled, tracked on live dashboards.
Measure – Proof-of-play + audience analytics, delivered instantly.
👉 From discovering billboards to reporting -- everything is automated.
The Team That Owns This Marketplace
Santosh Smith (Founder): 28 years in media sales (TV, print, outdoor). Deep ties with India’s premium billboard owners. A serial entrepreneur who’s executed at scale.
Umang Suuri (Co-Founder): 25+ years in media & infrastructure. Veteran of public–private partnerships, now leading DOOHIT’s UAE ops from Dubai.
GVP Take
This is the aggregator platform this industry have been waiting for.
Founder-market fit - Santosh has lived this industry for 28 years. He knows every player.
Big market, no platform - India’s $700M OOH market still runs on calls and spreadsheets.
Network flywheel - More media owners → more advertisers → more media owners.
Data moat - First to build audience measurement + campaign analytics at scale.
Global upside - Ready to expand into GCC ($1B+ OOH) and Southeast Asia.
Let’s look back the unicorns
Hotels → OYO ($2.5B)
Restaurants → Zomato ($25B)
Travel → Booking.com ($146B)
Billboards → DOOHIT (emerging in a $45B global DOOH market)
Sometimes the biggest opportunities hide in the most obvious places.
After 28 years of manual processes, WhatsApp negotiations, and spreadsheet paralysis, someone finally built the platform this industry desperately needed.
P.S. They're raising $1.5M seed round in two tranches ($500K + $1M). Reply here for deck and warm founder intro. This round won't stay open long - the traction speaks for itself.
BM, Traction records & full pitch deck download(Pro Zone)