Gaming major Krafton to invest another $150 million in Indian startups

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Krafton Inc said it will make investments of $150 million into Indian startups over the next two to three years. Over the last three years, the firm has invested about $140 million in 11 Indian gaming and content-driven ventures including Nazara Technologies’ unit Nodwin Gaming, Pratilipi, KukuFM and Loco.

The firm also invested as a limited partner in 3one4 Capital and Lumikai, but those investments were just roughly 10% of its total investments in the country. Sean Hyunil Sohn, chief executive at Krafton India, told ET in an interaction that the company’s investment thesis will target startups focussed on building intellectual property (IP).

“There are some core values across gaming and entertainment—you are monetising through your platform but at the same time you are creating value based on IPs. There is great potential with differentiated IPs… Pratilipi, KukuFM are also trying to build great IP pipelines,” he said.

The announcement comes even as Krafton’s most popular product, the battle royale game Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), continues to operate under a three-month review set by the government after it was blocked for about 10 months till May this year.Also read | After year-long ban, Krafton relaunches BGMI in India with limited playtime “Any fast growing gaming market takes some time to come up with the regulatory framework required… We saw similar cases in South Korea, in China, and even in the US. India is also unique due to the pace of mobile penetration, and the pace was so fast that a structured regulatory system took some time to catch up… Our flagship title has been under discussion not just because of geopolitical reasons, but also because any major game in a market will be under scrutiny and hot