SuperGaming secures fresh investment from Bandai Namco, publisher of Pac-Man and Elden Ring

Made in India battle royale game Indus

Bandai Namco Entertainment, the Japanese gaming giant behind titles such as Pac-Man, Tekken, Elden Ring, and Dark Souls Trilogy, has made an additional investment in Pune-based game development studio SuperGaming, the company said on February 4.

The investment, which underscores the growing investor interest in Indian gaming studios, was through Bandai Namco's 021 Fund, which was launched in April 2022. The fund had first backed SuperGaming in March 2023.

While the deal size was not disclosed, the fund typically invests between 10 million and 500 million yen ($75,000 to $3.75 million) in each startup.

"This follow-on investment aims to strengthen the partnership with SuperGaming, deepen understanding of the Indian market, and explore new business opportunities," Bandai Namco said in a statement.

Bandai Namco previously earmarked 3 billion yen ($22.5 million) over three years to the fund, which aims to create new entertainment experience and strengthen existing businesses.

021 Fund said it sees significant growth potential in entertainment markets across India, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia and is scouting for potential investment opportunities that can expand the Bandai Namco brand.

“Bandai Namco doubling down on their investment is a strong vote of confidence in our mission and our team — to build world-class games and gaming infrastructure from India for India and the world,” SuperGaming co-founder Roby John said.

Founded by John, Sanket Nadhani, Christelle D'cruz, Sreejit J and Navneet Waraich in 2019, SuperGaming has developed several popular games such as the multiplayer shooter title MaskGun, social deduction title Silly Royale, tower defence game Tower Conquest along with a web3 variant Tower Conquest: Metaverse Edition.

It has also developed a live-ops game development engine called SuperPlatform, of which Bandai Namco is a customer. The firm's official Pac-Man game, which has over one billion downloads, is powered by SuperPlatform.

Announced in collaboration with Google Cloud, SuperPlatform provides a SaaS-based solution for game developers, allowing them to build and manage games while integrating with popular game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine.

SuperGaming has also developed Indus, a made-in-India battle royale, set in an Indo-futuristic universe, which was launched in October and has been downloaded 6 million times.

SuperGaming raised $5.5 million in its Series A from investors such as Akatsuki Entertainment Technology Fund, Skycatcher, BAce Capital and Dream Incubator.

India is the fastest-growing games market in Asia, in terms of revenue and gamers, according to Niko Partners, a market research and consulting firm that covers video games, e-sports and streaming in the continent.

The combined mobile, PC and console gaming revenue is projected to surpass $1 billion by 2025 from $943 million in 2024. The market is expected to reach $1.4 billion by 2028, clocking a five-year compound annual growth rate of 11.1 percent, it said. These figures do not include revenues from real-money games or exports.