Japanese mobile gaming and entertainment company Mixi have announced they will invest $50m in the Indian market.
The focus will be squarely on early-stage startups in the country that work in the mobile gaming industry, entertainment sector and consumer services. Mixi has already invested around 70 billion yen ($489m) from 2019 to 2022, with their focus now turning to overseas and emerging markets such as India. The Indian gaming market has seen a meteoric rise in recent years that has presented an appealing alternative to mega-markets like China.
Principal partner at Mixi Global Investments, Tomoharu Urabe, stated, “We believe in India’s startup ecosystem especially in the sector of digital entertainment. Mixi is a business operator in social network and mobile entertainment apps. We are committed to contributing to startups’ growth with our industry knowledge and assets, and positively impacting the startup ecosystem in India.“
Why India?
India has a potent and already thriving entertainment industry, with mobile gaming and entertainment slowly growing to become a major part of that. As far as number of users go, India outweighs even heavyweights like China, however monetising and engaging this audience has proved to be a major barrier to success for developers and publishers alike. The conflict between real money gaming and “true” mobile gaming has also raised concerns from the latter that the conflation by both press and public could result in regulations adversely affecting them.
Mixi’s investment, although relatively small compared to the size of the market itself, will nonetheless likely have a seismic impact on those companies that receive it. The investment also goes some way to waylaying fears that recent regulatory controversies may have dissuaded investors, as Mixi clearly sees major potential in India. The potential for massive investment in startups is likely to have a knock-on effect as well, making it more feasible for these companies to be succesful at an early stage and – thusly – for employees to see appeal in moving into the growing mobile gaming industry in India.
