The new culture company will work across artist development, cultural IP, storytelling and live experiences, backing the creative communities and unconventional voices shaping what comes next.

Culture rarely begins where everyone is looking. It takes shape in independent music scenes, unconventional art forms, niche communities and creative movements long before the mainstream finds the language to describe them. With Cultural (Mis)fits (CMF), veteran media executive Ishita Chauhan is building a business around precisely these worlds.

Announced in New Delhi on 8 October 2026, CMF is a new culture company designed to support India’s counter-mainstream creative economy. After a year of developing the venture behind the scenes, Chauhan is bringing together artists, creators, culturalists, communities and ideas that challenge conventional categories and open up new possibilities for cultural expression.

At its heart is a simple premise: there are no misfits, only cultures waiting to be understood.

Beyond Visibility: Building the Infrastructure for Culture

CMF is designed to work beyond the traditional boundaries of talent management or content production. Its model brings together artist development, cultural storytelling, brand partnerships, live experiences and intellectual property, creating pathways for creative ideas to develop into sustainable ventures.

The company will operate across six areas: Digital Media, Artists & Culturist Network, Content Studio, Live Experiences, Cultural IPs and Merchandise. Together, these divisions are intended to help ideas move from discovery and storytelling to community-building, experiences and commerce.

The distinction matters in a creative economy where visibility does not always translate into long-term opportunity. For artists and emerging cultural movements, the challenge is often not simply finding an audience, but building the networks, platforms and commercial structures that allow their work to grow without losing what makes it distinctive.

CMF’s approach places that infrastructure at the centre of its proposition.

The Artists and Cultural Worlds Shaping CMF

The company launches with a multidisciplinary roster spanning music, performance and contemporary creative expression.

Its initial network includes Rushil Ranjan, Abi Sampa, Eshna Kutty, Gopal Datt Tewari, Aakash Odedra and Nirvair Rai, alongside The Orchestral Qawwali Project, led by Ranjan and Sampa; Songs of Bulbul; Jupiter Pe Juice; and Ruhbaru, a music IP owned by CMF.

The breadth of the roster points towards a cultural model that moves across disciplines rather than operating within a single entertainment category. Music, movement, performance and community-led creative work can each become entry points into larger cultural conversations.

By bringing these worlds under one umbrella, CMF aims to create opportunities for artists to reach audiences, collaborate with brands and institutions, develop intellectual property and explore opportunities beyond India’s borders.

What Is Cultural Intimacy?

One of CMF’s defining ideas is what Chauhan calls Cultural Intimacy.

The concept starts with a question: where does culture live when the mainstream isn’t looking? The answer, in CMF’s view, lies in specific communities, interests, identities and creative scenes that develop their own language, aesthetics and ways of connecting.

As audiences increasingly gather around shared passions and cultural identities, influence is not always measured by the size of an audience. It can also be shaped by trust, participation and the depth of a community’s relationship with the people and ideas it follows.

For brands, this presents a different way of approaching cultural relevance. Rather than entering a community simply to access its audience, the emphasis is on understanding its context and finding a meaningful way to contribute.

CMF describes its proposition to brands as “intimacy at scale”—the ability to engage with particular cultural worlds while building connections that can extend across audiences and markets.

A Founder Shaped by Media, Brands and Changing Audiences

Chauhan’s own professional journey informs the thinking behind CMF. Beginning her career in retail, she went on to leadership roles across media, entertainment and consumer technology, working at the intersection of brands, emerging audiences and changing consumer behaviour.

Over more than two decades, these experiences shaped her interest in questioning established categories and recognising creative potential before it becomes widely acknowledged.

“I’ve always been a misfit, from classrooms to boardrooms. I was never particularly interested in fitting the mould. I was more interested in questioning why the mould existed in the first place,” Chauhan said.

After more than 20 years across media, brands, content and culture, she wanted to build a company around the belief that some creative worlds are not outside the mainstream because they lack value, but because the mainstream has not yet learned how to understand them.

For the artists and cultural voices CMF works with, that philosophy translates into a promise to build context, infrastructure and opportunities around what makes them different, rather than asking them to become more conventional to be commercially viable.

Can Cultural Relevance Become Sustainable Opportunity?

CMF’s launch also raises a broader question for India’s creative economy: how can cultural influence translate into long-term economic value without losing its authenticity?

For emerging artists and independent communities, commercial partnerships can bring resources and reach, but they also require an understanding of the culture from which the work emerges. A model built around participation rather than simple exposure seeks to bridge that gap.

“Reach can be bought. Cultural relevance must be earned,” Chauhan said. “Our job is to find the people creating cultural capital everyone else hasn’t learnt to value yet, and help turn it into sustainable economic opportunity.”

CMF is now expanding its network of artists, creators, culturalists, brands, institutions and global partners across India and beyond.

Its longer-term ambition is to help build the systems through which unconventional ideas can develop into enduring cultural properties and viable creative businesses. In a landscape where new movements often emerge before the institutions around them are ready, Cultural (Mis)fits is betting on the value of looking beyond the obvious—and building for what comes next.