New sector-focused lighthouse VC will fund up to 20 early-stage investments with cheque sizes between $200K to $2M
Kolkata: August 17th, 2020: Lumikai (India’s first venture fund focused 100% on gaming & interactive media) today announced a new early stage venture capital fund focused on India’s fast-growing gaming and interactive markets. The fund is backed by a global investor base, including iconic gaming and technology companies from Japan, Finland, US, and South Korea, deploying long-term capital into India’s interactive entertainment market for the first time.
Lumikai fund is built to supercharge the new generation of India’s leading founders across interactive content, technology, tools and infrastructure – Made in India, for 300M+ domestic gamers and global audiences.
Lumikai was founded by General Partners Justin Shriram Keeling (Comcast-G4, Managing Director at Fox Interactive Media, Corporate Strategy Head at Disney UTV Games) and Salone Sehgal (London Venture Partners (LVP), Games entrepreneur, former M&A banker from Morgan Stanley & Barclays) Together they leverage 40 years of combined operational experience, global networks, industry insights and investment experience to lead Lumikai as India’s first thesis-driven gaming and interactive entertainment fund.
“India’s 300M+ user gaming market represent a global inflection point, a unique opportunity enabled by multiple stars aligning. A billion young, entertainment hungry users now have access to the world’s cheapest data and frictionless national mobile payments – we also have arguably the deepest bench of raw creative and technical talent in the world” commented Justin Shriram Keeling, Lumikai General Partner. “As India’s first dedicated long-term capital and strategic partner for the gaming ecosystem, Lumikai’s vision is to help enable a new golden age for India’s ambitious founders that also drives interactive sector innovation worldwide.”
“Traditionally, global finance eschewed the games industry viewing it as a hit driven business. In India too, games creators have been underfinanced. However, we deeply believe in the portfolio approach of building early winners across genres to deliver outsized returns.” commented Salone Sehgal, Lumikai General Partner. “Investing In interactive media is highly nuanced and requires specialist insights. Our approach goes far beyond capital. We know success in gaming requires local insights, knowledge of global best practices, rapid iteration, access to high quality talent and relevant strategic access for distribution and go-to-market. Our domestic and global networks, along with the input of our global LP base provide essential advantages to break out in India and the world.”
Lumikai has been actively sourcing deals in stealth mode with over 140 interactive founders already met in H1 2020. With first close recently completed, the fund plans to announce its first wave of investments in Q3.
About: Lumikai is India's first early stage venture capital fund focused on the gaming and interactive entertainment landscape. Lumikai combines the Latin word for ‘light' with the Japanese word for ‘tribe'. Backed by a global investor base, including some of the world's most iconic games and media companies Lumikai seeks to finance and support a tribe of pioneering, lighthouse founders building the next wave of India’s gaming, digital entertainment & media companies. The fund invests at the early pre-seed/seed stage with allocation for few Series A bets. Combined with decades of operational knowledge, investment experience and an all-star strategic network in games and new media, Lumikai partners closely with founders to give them an unbeatable edge.
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