Krafton hikes India bet with new $670M fund

Krafton, the South Korean gaming institution down deed titles specified arsenic PUBG and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), is launching a maturation concern money focused connected India, stepping up its propulsion into the world’s largest net idiosyncratic base.

Called the Unicorn Growth Fund, the concern conveyance is simply a collaboration betwixt Krafton and South Korean net conglomerate Naver, and capitalist Mirae Asset. It aims to deploy up to ₹60 cardinal (around $669.3 million) implicit 4 years, Krafton confirmed to TechCrunch.

The fund, which volition beryllium managed by Mirae Asset Venture India, is expected to beryllium established successful January and statesman operations with an archetypal size of much than ₹30 cardinal (about $334.6 million). Krafton volition lend ₹12.3 cardinal (approximately $137.2 million) astatine the archetypal close, the institution said.

Naver’s superior committedness is expected to beryllium “broadly comparable” to Krafton’s $137 cardinal investment, a Krafton spokesperson told TechCrunch. The money volition not run with rigid country-allocation thresholds, and emblematic concern sizes are expected to scope betwixt $10 cardinal and $30 million, the spokesperson said.

Krafton said investments done the caller money would chiefly beryllium treated arsenic fiscal positions alternatively than strategical bets, though the level of engagement with portfolio companies could alteration depending connected the accidental and semipermanent imaginable of each business.

To date, Krafton has invested much than $200 cardinal successful India, backing companies successful the gaming, contented and fintech spaces. Recent investments see fintech Cashfree and task money IMM Investment, alongside earlier bets connected gaming and contented platforms specified arsenic Nodwin Gaming, Loco, Pratilipi, and Kuku FM. The institution besides launched a gaming incubator successful India successful 2023, and acquired a controlling involvement successful Indian gaming workplace Nautilus Mobile for $14 cardinal earlier this year.

Krafton’s enlargement successful India has not been without setbacks. New Delhi banned BGMI, the company’s flagship section title, successful 2022, earlier allowing it to instrumentality successful 2023 pursuing a three-month proceedings approval. Krafton subsequently announced a $150 cardinal concern committedness successful the country.

BGMI, which has surpassed 240 cardinal downloads, launched successful 2021 arsenic a revamped, localized mentation of PUBG Mobile, different fashionable rubric that was banned by the Indian authorities successful mid-2020 implicit nationalist information concerns. Since then, Krafton has made a bid of operational changes successful the state — including cutting ties with Tencent arsenic its steadfast and migrating its India servers to Microsoft’s Azure unreality — to code regulatory concerns.

With the caller fund, Krafton is looking to widen its India strategy beyond gaming, channeling superior into a wider acceptable of exertion startups arsenic it seeks to physique a semipermanent beingness successful 1 of Asia’s fastest-growing integer markets.