Krafton, a South Korean Gaming Giant is making significant moves in India’s gaming sector, expanding beyond its well-known titles like PUBG Battlegrounds and Battlegrounds Mobile India.
“We believe India has much bigger potential as a game development powerhouse than what we are seeing right now,” Hyunil Sohn, the CEO of Krafton said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.
Krafton has invested over $170 million in several Indian startups and continues to harbor this relationship. It collaborates with AWS, AccelByte, AppMagic, and Liftoff’s GameRefinery to provide infrastructure, analytics, and marketing support for Indian game developers.
Krafton Strengthening Its Presence In India
Krafton is interested in understanding the market with reference to the demographic and geography of their investments. They recently notched up their stake in Nautilus Mobile, a Pune-based gaming studio known for its popular Real Cricket franchise to a majority. This $14 million deal strengthens Krafton’s presence in the cricket gaming market, which is highly popular in India.
These acquisitions reflect Krafton’s commitment to diversifying its offerings and strengthening its foothold in both established and emerging gaming markets. Do you think these moves will help Krafton maintain its competitive edge?
Earlier this year they announced a willingness to fund, mentor and incubate 6 indie gaming teams/ interfaces in India. This exercise is done through Krafton India Gaming Incubator (KIGI) which gives them access to state-of-the-art resources to build their gaming-verse. Their drive to really hunt down talent can be seen, as their first round of funding involved ReDimension Games all the way from Nagaland along with another Gaming start-up from Bangalore.
They help take ideas to execution, provide one on one mentorship, milestone based funding of upto $150,000 and Cloud Servers amongst other things
The six startups, in KIGI’s second cohort announced recently include:
- Madurai-based indie studio Kleanup Games that is building Chromadi, a retro arcade shoot-’em-up video game centered on colour-mixing mechanics and high-score action.
- Advaita Interactive is developing Inspectorium, a hidden object detective game set in a steampunk-inspired version of Victorian-era Kolkata.
- Singular Scheme, a Mumbai-founded indie studio led by Ahad Oomerbhoy, along with a team of eight, is developing Frontier Paladin, an RPG with action-tower defense elements set in a cursed battlefield filled with divine relics and ancient foes,.
- Smash Head Studio, a Bangalore-based developer with over a decade of experience, is gearing up to launch Cricket Rivals, a fast-paced, real-time multiplayer mobile game that reimagines the spirit of cricket with quick, competitive matches designed for global appeal.
- Unwind Games, a mobile studio based in Hyderabad and founded by industry veterans Jayant Shukla and Khozema Abuwala, is developing BaoBao’s Journey, a heartfelt casual puzzle game starring a lovable panda on a quest to build his dream mountain lodge.
- Lastly, Ginger Games, a studio from New Delhi founded in 2024 by Shrey Mishra, Sumit Batheja, and Piyush Kumar, is developing Monkey Mayhem, a vibrant hybrid-casual action-adventure mobile game set in the quirky “Monkey Universe.”
Their commitment to truly boost Esports in India was last year represented as the FDI Powerhouse state of Gujarat and TransStadia Technologies Pvt. Ltd. co-jointly signed an MoU with Krafton to boost the Esports Ecosystem as well as Technological developments.
The Government of Gujarat lauded the partnership, Sh. Harsh Sanghavi , Hon’ble Minister for Home, Sports, Youth and Cultural Activities, Government of Gujarat, remarked, “Government of Gujarat will benefit from this collaboration with KRAFTON as it will undoubtedly catalyze our efforts to transform Gujarat into an indigenous and interactive hub for e-sports. We look forward to the positive impact this partnership will have on our youth and the broader e-sports gaming community.”
The investments are reaching points of fruition as well as ReDimension Games’ Sojourn Past made a debut in Pragati Maidam in Indian Gaming Show 2025. Committed to enhancing the start-up ecosystem in India.
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