point
The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

December - 2008 - issue > VC Perspective

Casual gaming a big draw for VCs

Rahul Khanna
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Rahul Khanna
What are the prospects for the Animation industry in India?

Roadside Romeo, an animated film released recently by Yash Raj and Disney is massive leap forward for the Indian animation industry. It shows that studios in India, with support from majors in Hollywood are willing to take creative risks and comit large budgets to an emerging category of entertainment.

Despite this success, I do not think many early stage VCs will move into financing animation companies, especially those that take on the risk of a content and hits led model. However, given the scale that some of these studios have achieved, they are now able to attract financing from strategics, film funds or even private equity investors who continue to be active in the entertainment vertical.

How can companies de-risk their investments into large animation and gaming projects?

In recent times, Virgin Animation (now Liquid Comics) have taken a rather interesting route towards trying to create unique IP and original characters. They try out characters in their comics, which is much cheaper than in animation, and once some of these characters succeed in striking a chord, they monetise them through progressively larger projects like casual games, short form animated content and eventually feature films.


Share on Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Share on facebook