"Not knowing enough about the 'correct way to do things' and doing them anyway can open up the most amazing new doorways" - Richard Branson.

This precisely summarizes the story of the three founders of ARK Grupo - a multi-disciplinary establishment that offers an entire portfolio of effective, affordable and customized event solutions according to client needs. When the three school friends - Anoop Mathew,Rahul Papali andKiran Raj - were in college, a common dream of becoming their own masters took root deep into their minds and started flourishing without anyone's knowledge. After the college days were over, they chose the treaded path and started working in the IT industry with the flame of the long seen dream still burning inside. But the free-spirited trio was not meant to remain caged up. Soon, they broke free by deciding to abandon the cocoon of their jobs and soared out to rule the world. Their first maiden venture was kicked off in the Bangalore F&B sector with an upscale pub named 'White Tiger Sports Lounge Pub' in May 2009. In later years they partnered with Xtreme Sports Bar to manage its day-to-day operations. The success of lounge pub, which was first of its kind in the area, inspired multiple other competitors to mushroom up.

With a strong level of self-confidence from this success and an eye for expansion, ARK decided to set foot in the event management business. But the journey set ahead of the elemental three whose names' initials coalesce to constitute the name of the company - 'ARK', was not an easy one. Ignoring the raised eyebrows and skeptical remarks, the company set sail to meet the compelling demands of the market for professional event managers.

While the industry looked bounty, the challenges were tough nuts to crack. As the event industry encompasses relatively few players, gaining experience and know-how of executing events was not easily available. ARK relied on trial and error to gain a footing. "Regulatory aspects for licenses and permissions needed considerable amount of research and relationship building to get to where we are today which was critical to our success over these initial years," explains Anoop Mathew, Co-Founder & CEO, ARK Grupo. As opposed to being a services based events company, the trio decided to create inspired events as products and sell them to the masses. "This involved taking a lot of risk on our end to understand the market and deliver entertainment that our audience needs and the appropriate support from our family, friends and investing partners enabled us to confidently raise the bar for entertainment events," says Rahul Papali, Director, ARK Grupo.

Post nailing the glitches that came its way along with the industry challenge of infrastructure, ARK took the route to cater the youth on the top of the pyramid of the event management industry' live performances. The company has successfully executed multiple concerts to the tune of over 20,000 people, a scale that Bangalore has not witnessed very often in the past. Having organized a wide spectrum of events ranging from cricket tournaments to music concerts for a host of sectors in India as well as Malaysia, the company further diversified to address the capital management sector as well.