Actor-producer Rana Daggubati: Film world is like the startup world — and I’ve been in it for 20 years now

Rana Daggubati says he doesn't collect luxury items like watches because he's prone to losing them. (Image: Moneycontrol)

Rana Daggubati’s business investments can seem as varied as the roles he’s played in the movies, starting with his debut film ‘Leader’ (2010) and mega hit ‘Baahubali’ (2015) to his latest, ‘Kaantha’ (2025), with Dulquer Salman. But there’s a logical progression to how he got inducted into each venture, Rana Daggubati explains. Consider this list of some of the businesses he’s invested in so far: a VFX studio called Spirit Media; a talent agency called Kwan Entertainment; his family’s production house Suresh Productions, of course; Amar Chitra Katha; football and kabaddi leagues; a game development company called Gamezop, a Web3 company called Ikonz, an experiential retail store called Broadway which he launched in 2024, food businesses like VS Mani & Co and Salud as well as The Sanctuary Bar and Kitchen in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. And most recently, a tequila brand called Loca Loka, which he cofounded with Tamil singer and composer Anirudh Ravichander and foodpreneur Harsha Vadlamuni in 2024.

Rana Daggubati at the India launch of Loca Loka in New Delhi. (Image: Moneycontrol)

To be sure, more Indian movie stars have been investing more money in businesses from health foods and gym wear to jewellery brands and cosmetics in the 21st century than ever before. But while investments in production companies and studios (even the ones with high-tech VFX and AI offerings) are a natural extension of the film industry they are part of, other business investments can seem more of a leap.

On the sidelines of the India launch of the tequila he cofounded — Loca Loka, which translates from Spanish and Sanskrit as crazy world, and launched in the US and South-East Asia before coming here — on November 21, Rana Daggubati explains how he became invested in so many businesses, and talks about the kind of investor he is. Plus, the similarities and differences between how he picks his movies and business ventures, and why he doesn’t collect luxury items including watches. Edited excerpts:

Your investments seem to be as varied as the roles you've play in your movies. You’re invested in children's books publisher Amar Chitra Katha, a studio that does VFX and AI, a venture capital firm Anthill Ventures and you've got other things going on — like Loca Loka tequila now. How do you decide what to put your money in?

To me, it was always (about the) audience and experience. I'm a storyteller. I come from telling stories in the movies. But I've realized every single thing in life is about telling a story and creating an experience, whether it’s a film, whether it's through a show, whether it's through a product; if I'm able to enhance someone’s experience, that's a world that I'd like to be 1,000,000 US dollars behind.

In terms of your decision process, did you start by saying I'm in the movie industry, this is the ecosystem, I want a little part of each of the things that make the movies what they are?

That's pretty much how it began for me. It started with media tech, to enhance all the entertainment: how much better can I make entertainment? Then the production. It's part of our cycle, right? Essentially it was telling stories.

Now, you asked about Amar Chitra Katha (ACK). Again, it's telling stories in a comic book form… every brand needs to stand for the type of story it tells. ACK had that down very, very beautifully. The fact that there was a certain generation that grew up in India understanding that. Today when things are extremely religious, extremely devotional, ACK is the one company that is just telling these stories as is, as stories. At least in my childhood, it maneuvered me in terms of understanding India the best way possible, and just to be part of a company like that was something pretty phenomenal for me.

We also have a talent agency… talent is part of making the content. If you have to make content, you need filmmakers, you need writers, you need actors.

But did you sit down and draw up that plan before making any of the investments or did they just happen that way?

I think I was inducted into that plan. I was 30 years old when I was part of Suresh Production, the family company that is almost 60 years old now, making movies. To me, it was constructing a legacy where it could go forward without a middleman problem. Usually what happens with most legacy companies is that once the central figure of that family is gone, the organization also kind of dwindles away because the ethos or the philosophy of the old is not held in the right form. So I think that's where it started. It started by making films, then by distributing films, then it continued through exhibiting films. And then I came to visual effects for films. I started doing post (production) for films. I created a talent agency that could make films and production was part of this cycle. It started with that essentially and then I was deeply in the media-tech space, more towards understanding where the world is going.

Just being part of these accelerators, being part of these funds, it’s almost like having one leg in the future at all times. You know that, OK, this is happening in Israel, this might happen in India; this is happening in the United States… So somewhere it gives me an access to what the world is up to and then I can choose: OK, now this is the direction we want to really drive.

Then consumer brand came naturally with the agency because we started endorsing a lot of content. We started creating advertising for a lot of brands… We started first supplying talent to the brand, then we started creating stories for the brand.

Why did you choose to invest in a tequila brand?

I have been interested in the alcobev space for a while, and I've been part of some funds, been passively kind of looking at the growth of other alcohols. Like India had a gin phase for a while; there was one burst where there were lots of new gin brands, and it kind of died out pretty quickly in terms of scale. So we were like, OK, now where do we start? Then Harsha (Vadlamudi) met me, then we got to meet Anirudh (Ravichander). From there the journey was pretty interesting. It was so difficult to make the tequila; it took us almost 2.5 years. First finding this family (Willy Bañuelos) took us forever. The tastings took forever. We wanted to get the right profile. We were clear we didn't want to white label something and call it our own. We wanted to build something. All of us are Indian entrepreneurs and artists, but we got to build something a fully global product, sold it to the globe first and then came to India.

Loca Loka tequila price: The Reposado tequila is priced at Rs 6,350 in Delhi. (Image: Moneycontrol)

And how involved are you in these ventures? Silent investor or active participant or somewhere in-between?

I am involved enough that I don't become a burden, but I become a support system for the ones building it.

Could you elaborate on that with an example, say, Loca Loka?

I've been very close in terms of getting the product and the taste profile right because you wouldn't want to endorse a product that you don’t consume.

I think Harsha was a little miffed with me in the beginning because we took a long time to design a label; we took a long time to get the bottle right — because it’s the way we hold it, right — what we planned to do in one year became 2.5 years in just getting the liquid profile right. That was a cycle that I was very involved in.

The second part is in terms of communicating to an audience. We chose, rather Loka Loca chose to go to the world first and then (come) to India. So, how do you communicate to an audience that's different? The first round of communications we did for Loca Loka, I was in rooms of over 100 people who had no idea who we were or where we came from. Being able to communicate that to the right audience was pretty much part of my job. And that continues.

Are there any similarities and differences between how you pick your movies versus how you pick the businesses you want to invest in?

Well, movies are much harder for a simple reason. You’ve got to keep doing a different film each time… If I’ve made a successful film, it doesn’t mean that the next film is going to work exactly the same. Because you’re trying to tell a totally different story, create a fully new experience.

At a broader level, yes, the process will be the same, but then the nitty-gritties of each become extremely different. Ultimately everything is an experience, right? The good thing is if you make a product that’s right, you can keep selling that same product.

You just have to find a way to communicate to audiences.

The film world is somewhere like the startup world — and I’ve been in it for 20 years now.

The public has a certain perception of you as a movie star and producer, and as someone who has a substantial social media following. How much does that dictate how or what you endorse or put your money into?

That’s less (of a concern in my case) actually. The entire brand has been built based on what I was doing, which is why I am who I am today. The love from the audience has always been interesting. They're excited when I do new things. Yeah, I keep giving them different stuff each step.

What’s been keeping you busy lately? Any new projects?

Last few weeks, it’s been about promotions (for 'Kaantha'). That film was like our full effort into trying to get art house and mainstream to talk (to each other). It's a very art house film which takes a commercial narrative in some ways. But we are very, very happy with the outcome.

Dulquer (Salmaan) is from Kerala and I am from Hyderabad and we made a common film, which was pretty crazy in itself, but we had fun.

You’ve been in the industry for 15-20 years…

Yeah, I’ve been around for a while.

How do you think things have changed? People keep talking about pan-Indian cinema. Really, what is?

Actually, it was funny. Pan-India was a term we coined for ‘Baahubali’ because we didn’t know how else to communicate to people.

The first Baahubali or the second one? Because by the time the second one was released, we knew what was coming.

Yeah, the first one. We had made a Telugu film, a really expensive film. And we had a hope that at least one other language (apart from Telugu) — maybe Tamil, maybe Hindi, one other language — will catch it. But I think that kind of led to that moment where India really was one cinematic nation. We all got to see it at one go. It didn't matter where we came from. Most people saw us (the cast of the film) for the first time ever… I think it changed the industry forever, where we’re all dreaming big, we’re all thinking very differently. There have been so many films — from Telugu, from Kannada, from Tamil — that have come to (resonate with audiences across India). I think it really started a global moment for us.

Historically, say, all of the South Indian industries were all in Madras at some point. If you see Kaantha, that's actually a tribute to that era and post the states being divided post-independence, we all separated in terms of regions in some manner and that continued to stay. But, like, cinema really doesn’t have a language. They were always some movies — the classic Mani Ratnam films or Ram Gopal Varma made his early films — that kind of cut across barriers, but we just didn’t know that was a real thing (a real possibility for filmmakers beyond these handful of examples). We thought, ‘Oh, it just happens to Mani Sir.’

(A turning point for South films may have come when people in other regions started) relating to the music in some (South films) and I think it’s also the advent of companies like Star Gold Z and others who were dubbing Telugu and Tamil content into Hindi which became very popular. And then Baahubali came and sat on top of all of that.

You mentioned how 'Kaantha' is a tribute to the old ‘Madras’ film industry. Could you tell us more? Were there any films that influenced you particularly when you were growing up?

To me, it was a fascination because I was part of the early film families that moved from Chennai to Hyderabad. Lots of history there that one wanted to put up. Yeah, it was always like that post-colonial hangover Madras that people relived; like this happened in that studio, this happened at AVM. These were the stories we grew up to, and it was that whole street that just made movies and that created the industry that we were in. For me, it (making ‘Kaantha’) was like going back and thinking, ‘Wow, this is how they would have played (made movies back then).’

Growing up, did you have any favourite movies from some of these studios?

Oh man, when you grow up just loving movies, just love so many of them.

Among the first ones you remember having a big impact on you?

The oldest black-and-white movies were ‘Pathal Bhairavi’ (1951) and Mayabazar (1957). These are the two films that I always look at.

What do you do when you're not working?

If I’m not shooting, I’m just sitting in one place.

But you invested in a football club.

Yes, I did.

Do you play football?

A little bit, not too much. It actually sounded, again, like an extension of entertainment in some manner where we started understanding the sport is taking a cycle of entertainment, which is interesting. That didn't go as well as explained because, I mean, it will take some time for India to catch up to soccer in that sense. Kabaddi (league) was something that I was associated with in the beginning for a long time. And that I think is a terrific sport that came out of the ashes. It was such a simple sport that everyone in the country understands and kind of got its fame from that.

How do you pick which films you want to do?

It’s quite varied. It’s a problem that having been into movies for so long, you like too many genres, from art films to big spectacle — I like all of them. I’m part of all of them. The thing about cinema is that it’s the most democratic thing that can happen in a country where we’re so divided by language, cast, religion. Where you’re always putting up boundaries, but nobody has a problem when you sit in a film theater, it's dark and you don’t even care who’s sitting next to you. All of us see one screen and react a certain way. We cry for the same things, we laugh for the same things. That's the most human thing that’s possible.

Tell us about your net worth — a news outlet recently put it at Rs 40-50 crore. Are we in the right ball park, at least?

I’m not publicly listed, so you can put whatever number you want. I don’t know how to measure that. I am also part of a larger family concern. We’re invested in many places. Yeah, each company has a certain value but...

Tell us about your luxury purchases. Do you splurge on fashion? Watches? Cars? The Internet seems to think you have at least one Mercedes, one Jaguar, one BMW.

(In terms of fashion trends,) I follow nothing. Each film, I have to change size and shape based on that character. So suddenly the sense of fashion has to become different. There’s one stylist of mine, she’s a very dear friend and has been a friend for a long time, whatever clothes I have, they’ve have been bought by her.

Do you collect watches or other luxury items?

No, I’m very bad (at it). I lose things, so I don’t collect -- nothing.

Is that a Panerai watch you're wearing now?

It's a gift from a friend...

But you buy luxury cars?

The car that I bought and I really, really like is a Vellfire. That is great because I can stretch my legs, just sit like I’m in a room and I can go around traffic. That's my favorite car.