India has 'huge opportunity' to become a leader in AVGC sector: Kris Gopalakrishnan

Kris Gopalakrishnan said India has the potential to become a leader in this sector due to its rich cultural history and diversity along with a huge 1.4 billion population

Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan has said India has a "huge opportunity" to become a global leader in the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, and Comics (AVGC) industry.

India's rich cultural history and diversity along with a huge 1.4 billion population offered a huge opportunity, Gopalakrishnan, who is also the co-founder of venture capital firm Axilor Ventures, said.

"I believe we have an opportunity to capture the domestic market and the 8 billion consumers in the world," Gopalakrishnan said in a fireside chat with JetSynthesys founder Rajan Navani at the Bengaluru Games, Animation, Visual effects conference (GAFX) 2024 on January 29.

To capitalise on this opportunity, Gopalakrishnan urged stakeholders to champion the country's opportunity and contribute towards industry-building activities.

"I would request all of you to become evangelisers of the opportunity this (AVGC sector) provides for India to become wealth creators, job creators, and create leading companies out of India. This has to become a $300-billion industry" he said.

Read: Karnataka aims to be global animation & gaming leader with 30,000 jobs by 2028: Siddaramaiah

Its culture and the diversity allowed Indians to think differently. "We have a large market and we have the imagination to capture markets, we are not behind anybody. So, we can imagine new formats, movies, content, and games. Kabaddi, for example, is something that we are giving to the world" he said.

To facilitate this growth, Gopalakrishnan said governments (state and central) and policy-makers needed to support the sector's needs with a policy focusing on skilling to increase job readiness of the workforce.

"I strongly believe that (state) governments have to provide incentives because it's a very competitive environment there. Why would somebody invest in Karnataka versus invest in Maharashtra. The government has to be competitive and make sure that they attract investments to Karnataka" he said.

In November, the Karnataka government released a draft AVGC-XR (Extended Reality) policy that aims to generate 30,000 jobs in the sector by 2028.

Through the policy, it was looking to create a talent pool by transforming the state into a centre of excellence for AVGC-related skills and ensure that exports constitute at least 80 percent of the sector's total revenue, the government said.

It plans to provide financial incentives through AVGC venture fund (KITVEN Fund-4) that has a corpus of Rs 20 crore to companies focusing on mobile-first products.

The government is also planning to measures such as reimbursement for skill development and job creation, covering marketing, infrastructure, and compliance costs for early-stage startups and grants for the production of animation films, series, VR/AR/VFX projects, and game development.