Lumikai: India's First Gaming VC, Now $100 Million Deep

When Lumikai launched in 2020, there was no such thing as a gaming-focused venture fund in India. Generalist investors admired the growth of mobile gaming but rarely wrote the first cheque to a game studio. Lumikai changed that — becoming India's first VC fund dedicated to gaming and interactive media, backed by some of the most iconic names in global gaming.

The thesis is built on a simple observation: India is the world's fastest-growing gaming market, powered by cheap data, hundreds of millions of game-ready smartphones and frictionless digital payments. Lumikai invests in early-stage founders across original IP and game content, digital media, creator economy and UGC platforms, tools and infrastructure, applied game mechanics ("systems of play"), and frontier bets like generative AI, mixed reality and edge computing. More recently the mandate has widened to interactive media and digital platforms at large.

The capital behind that thesis is serious. Fund I, raised in 2020, was $40 million. Fund II, launched in mid-2023 with a $50 million corpus, closed fully raised in 2025, alongside a dedicated $10 million AIF for Indian LPs — taking total assets under management to $100 million. Investors in the fund include Japanese gaming giants Mixi and Colopl, South Korea's Krafton and Smilegate, Finland's decacorn Supercell and BSE-listed Nazara Technologies, plus Indian family offices and angels such as former Take-Two CEO Ben Feder, Napster CEO Jon Vlassopulos and Nodwin Gaming founder Akshat Rathee.

The firm was founded by Salone Sehgal and Justin Shriram Keeling — Sehgal's track record spans London Venture Partners and M&A at Barclays and Morgan Stanley; Keeling is a games industry veteran with stints at Fox Interactive Media and Disney UTV Ignition. They typically invest from pre-seed to Series A, with cheque sizes of $700,000 to $1.5 million (and up to $2 million at seed).

The portfolio is a who's who of India's interactive ecosystem: Loco (game streaming), Eloelo (live social gaming), Bombay Play, Studio Sirah, Giga Fun Studios, EloTV and Story TV, Master AI, Supernova and Superflow, AutoVRse (enterprise VR), QuriousBit Games, Frammer AI, AskMyGuru, Mayhem Studios and the AI co-creation platform Demoverse.

What sets Lumikai apart for founders is access, not just capital. Lumikai Pixels, its pre-seed programme for founders on their "-1 to 10" journey, invests up to $500,000 in every selected startup — and plugs them into a mentor bench drawn from the global industry: leaders from Krafton India, NCSOFT, Colopl Next, Napster, Jagex and more. There are no application charges, and even idea-stage or solo founders are welcome to apply. Lumikai also publishes an influential annual India gaming market report, making it the ecosystem's default data source and a valuable megaphone for portfolio visibility.

For founders building games, interactive media or playful technology in India, Lumikai is the specialist investor that speaks the language — from game loops and retention to IP economics and cross-border distribution.