Lumikai's founding GP Justin Keeling departs gaming VC firm after 5 years

Justin Keeling, Founding General Partner, Lumikai

Lumikai's founding general partner, Justin Keeling, is leaving the gaming and interactive media-focused venture fund after five years.

This development comes at a time when India's rapidly growing gaming market is attracting global attention and is poised to become a major global gaming hub in the coming years.

Salone Sehgal, Lumikai's other founding general partner, will continue to lead the firm's efforts in the future, Keeling said in a LinkedIn post while announcing his departure.

"After five years as Founding GP across Funds I & II, the time has come to move on from Lumikai. I’m incredibly proud of the platform we’ve built in just a few years," Keeling said in the post. His next move is currently unknown, though he noted that he "will post more details in due course."

"I am confident that the Lumikai team under her (Salone Sehgal) leadership will continue to deliver world-class insights, investments, support, and returns for all our partners and stakeholders" he said.

Keeling and Sehgal co-founded Lumikai as India's first early-stage gaming and interactive media-focused venture fund in 2020. The firm typically invests in pre-seed to series A-stage startups with cheque sizes ranging from $700,000 to $1.5 million.

Some of its portfolio startups include the game streaming platform Loco, the social gaming and live entertainment platform Eloelo, gaming studios such as Bombay Play, Studio Sirah, Giga Fun Studios, and Mobile Premier League (MPL)-backed Mayhem Studios, and the game development tools startup CloudFeather Games.

Loco was acquired by Redwood, a technology-focused investment company based in the UAE, for $65 million in September 2024, while MPL acquired CloudFeather Games for an undisclosed amount in December 2024.

Lumikai had raised $40 million in its first fund and announced a $50 million second fund in June 2023, apart from plans to set up a dedicated $10M AIF (Alternate Investment Fund) for Indian LPs (limited partners) to attract domestic Rupee Capital.

Among the investors in the fund are publicly-listed Japanese mobile entertainment giant Mixi and game publisher Colopl, South Korean gaming giant Krafton and game publisher Smilegate, Finland-based decacorn Supercell, and Nazara Technologies, India's only publicly-listed gaming company.

Keeling has over 18 years of experience as a founder and builder, scaling and exiting gaming, media, and technology companies across the global and Indian markets. This includes stints at UTV Ignition, Fox Interactive Media, and BBC.

Meanwhile, Sehgal was previously a Principal at London Venture Partners, a seed-stage gaming-focused fund. She was also the co-founder of mobile gaming company TrulySocial. Overall, Sehgal has over 15 years of experience across venture capital, gaming, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A), working alongside companies from seed to IPO.

India's gaming industry generated a revenue of $3.8 billion in FY24, a 22.6 percent growth from the previous year, according to a report from Lumikai. It also added that the industry is projected to surpass $9.2 billion by FY29, growing at a 20 percent CAGR over the next five years.