Krafton commits $150 million to India following BGMI trial approval
techcrunch.comSouth Korean gaming firm Krafton plans to invest another $150 million in India over the next 2-3 years, it said in a boon to the local gaming ecosystem, after securing permission to trial its popular battle royale game in the South Asian market following two bans.
Thursday’s announcement follows Krafton investing about $140 million in 11 Indian startups and the local gaming ecosystem in the last three years. The company, whose Indian investments include Nodwin Gaming, Loco, Pratilipi, Kuku FM, told TechCrunch that it’s “implicitly happy with the performance” of India portfolio startups as most of them have grown their revenues multiple times and raised subsequent rounds.
“We continue to hold a long-term view on India and its vibrant startup ecosystem, and we understand perfectly well that there are a number of reasons that can impact a company’s performance, including market conditions and consumer sentiment, among others, and we at Krafton will continue to support them,” the firm said.
The new $150 million investment pledge comes at a time when Krafton’s BGMI mobile title has been permitted to operate in India, nearly a year after it was banned. The South Korean giant secured the three-month approval from the Indian authorities to resume operations of Battlegrounds Mobile India in May and the duration of the trial is set to expire in two weeks.
BGMI itself is a revamped and localized version of PUBG, another popular title that was banned by New Delhi in mid-2020 over national security concerns. Krafton has made many significant business decisions — including cutting ties with Tencent as publisher and switching to Microsoft’s Azure for servers in India — to address New Delhi’s concerns.
Nonetheless, the new announcement is a
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