LightFury Games bags $8.5-million seed funding from Blume Ventures, Mixi, others

Apart from investing in game development, the funds raised will be used to establish game studios in India and in the United Kingdom

LightFury Games, a gaming firm co-founded by former Unacademy chief marketing officer Karan Shroff, said on April 17 that it has raised $8.5 million seed investment led by Blume Ventures, indicating a rise in investor interest in local gaming studios.

The fundraising round also saw participation from Japanese mobile entertainment firm Mixi and micro venture capital firm Gemba Capital, besides angel investors such as Cred founder Kunal Shah and Unacademy co-founder Gaurav Munjal.

Shroff has teamed up with former Unacademy and Tencent Games executive Tina Balachandran and gaming industry veteran Anurag Banerjee to launch the gaming studio in January 2024.

Shroff will serve as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the gaming studio, while Banerjee will be the group chief product and technology officer (CPTO) and Balachandran will be the chief people and operations officer.

The company intends to build high-quality AAA titles with an initial focus on mobile games and later expand to other platforms, including consoles. AAA games are titles that typically have big budgets for both development and marketing purposes.

Apart from investing in game development, the funds raised will be used to establish game studios in India and in the UK and hire top talent for these studios, Shroff said in a statement.

India's rising gaming market

This launch comes as India's gaming sector is showing signs of increasing maturity in terms of user behaviour and their spending habits, thereby paving the way for local gaming studios to attempt building more ambitious, complex games.

This includes Dream Sports' Dream Game Studios, Mobile Premier League(MPL)-backed Mayhem Studios, Bandai Namco-backed SuperGaming and Pune-based gaming firm JetSynthesys among others.

The country's rising potential as a global video gaming hub is also drawing interest from international gaming giants and game-focused funds.

South Korean gaming giant Krafton has pledged to invest another $150 million in Indian gaming and interactive entertainment startups over the next two to three years, bringing the company's total investment corpus in the country to about $290 million. Mixi also launched a $50 million corporate venture capital fund dedicated to the Indian market in August 2023.

Also Read: Indian gaming studios see big action; take bolder, ambitious bets

Lumikai, a gaming and interactive media-focused venture fund, launched its second fund in June 2023 with an aim to raise $50 million to back early-stage gaming and interactive media startups in the country. Centre Court Capital, which counts JSW Group scion Parth Jindal as anchor investor, also debuted a Rs 350-crore sports tech and gaming fund earlier this month.

India is the fastest-growing video games market in Asia, both 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.

It said the mobile and PC gaming revenue in the country is projected to reach $1.58 billion by 2027, registering a five-year compound annual growth rate of 17.2 percent from an estimated $868 million in 2023. These figures do not include revenue generated by real money games.

"The size of the gaming market in India is on the rise and it is an excellent time for us to bring our expertise into the industry. Creating successful AAA titles in the Indian market and establishing a Tencent-like presence originating from India, is what we are excited to bring to the fore" Shroff said in a statement.

Karthik Reddy, co-founder and managing partner at Blume Ventures said,"We’ve known Karan and his passion towards work since his Unacademy days, we discovered a drive in him for translating this to a AAA gaming studio, thought through from an Indian lens"

"The ability to piece together the talent and bring in believers from the gaming and consumer universe make it one of our most exciting investments we’ve made in this space" he said.

Blume Ventures has previously backed gaming firms such as casual games developer Hashcube, multiplayer social gaming platform Mech Mocha (acquired by Flipkart in 2020), and mobile games studio Rolocule (acquired by Dream Sports in August 2021).

Founding team

Shroff quit Unacademy in September 2022 after a three-year stint, during which he was also elevated as the edtech firm's first partner, equivalent to a co-founder position. Prior to Unacademy, Shroff served as the head of brand marketing for Xiaomi India for over four years.

Meanwhile, Banerjee has previously worked in gaming studios such as Ubisoft, Rocksteady Studios, WB Games Montreal and Improbable. He has played a key role in building and shipping many billion dollar gaming titles including multiple titles under the Assassin's Creed franchise and Batman: Arkham franchise and the Suicide Squad-Kill the Justice League title.

Balachandran, who was previously senior vice president at Unacademy and HR director at Tencent Games, has a track record of scaling organizations and leading cultural initiatives, the company said. She also helped Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent with its expansion in India.

LightFury Games has also roped in former Improbable and Electronic Arts executive Chong-U Lim as its chief technology officer (CTO) and long-time Improbable executive Daniel Hall as the company's senior director of engineering.