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Lumikai Launches $50 Million Fund II, To Invest In Gaming And Interactive Media Start-Ups

The gaming-focused venture fund has a combined $100 million assets under management

Lumikai Launches $50 Million Fund II, To Invest In Gaming And Interactive Media Start-Ups
Lumikai’s founding general partners, Justin Shriram Keeling and Salone Sehgal

Outlook Start-Up Desk

POSTED ON June 22, 2023 8:29 PM

Lumikai, a gaming and interactive media fund, launched its second fund targeting a $50 million corpus from global investors. The funds will be deployed pre-seed to series A investments into India's leading gaming and interactive media founders. 

Lumikai Fund I has $40 million under management. Aside from the global corpus, this time around, the company is also inviting domestic capital with the setup of a dedicated $10 million alternate investment funds (AIF) for Indian limited partners (LPs). It will bring Lumikai's total investment into India's gaming and interactive media sector to over $100 million. The fund has already completed its oversubscribed first close. 

Lumikai Fund II investors include Japan's Mixi and Colopl, South Korea's Krafton and Smilegate, Finland-based decacorn Supercell, India's gaming major Nazara and family offices including the Jeejeebhoys, KCT Group, DSP Kothari, and Sattva Group. High net-worth individuals also participated in the raise, including Ben Feder, former CEO of Take Two Interactive, Jon Vlassopulos, CEO of Napster, Pankaj Gupta, founder of Gulf Islamic Investments and Akshat Rathee, founder of Nodwin Gaming. 

Fund II will continue investing in India's $2.6 billion gaming market, which is set to grow to $8.6 billion by FY2027, according to Lumikai's 'State of India Gaming report FY22'. It will invest across five key thesis areas, including gaming content, original IP and digital media, user-generated content platforms and creator economy, tools, technology and infrastructure. It will also focus on companies leveraging 'systems of play', applied game mechanics and interactive touchpoints across value chains and frontier bets, including mixed reality, generative AI, virtual identities, edge computing etc.  

Lumikai Fund II already has a pipeline of investments planned for deployment, including three deals at the term sheet stage for companies built by industry veterans in plays within the content, platforms and frontier thesis areas. 

Salone Sehgal, founding general partner (GP) of Lumikai, commented, "Over the course of the last three years, we have seen 1400+ deals and seen the industry attract investor interest, deepen founder quality and achieve liquidity events. We remain bullish on the long-term potential of the India interactive market and this is our opportunity to build on the foundation we have laid. "  

Justin Shriram Keeling, founding GP of Lumikai, commented, "Lumikai was created ground-up to be a focal point for the next generation of superstar gaming and interactive media founders. These sunrise sectors have seen tremendous tailwinds since we launched the fund, and we are privileged to have a front-row seat in this revolution."

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