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Studio Sirah, a Bengaluru-based gaming studio, on January 25 announced that it has raised $2.6 million led by early stage venture capital firm Kalaari Capital and existing investor Lumikai, a gaming and interactive media-focused venture fund, underlining the growing investor interest in studios building games based on Indian culture.
The startup plans to use the funds raised to globally launch its flagship gaming title 'Kurukshetra: Ascension' by June 2023. The proceeds will also go towards building its second, yet-to-be-titled game.
"Over the last year, we have worked hard to build a mid-core gaming studio from scratch, and launched a game which has both cultural resonance and global quality. It is evident that there is a huge (and growing) market for uniquely Indian content," said Studio Sirah, co-founder of Abhaas Shah. "Over the coming decades, we hope to not only entertain Indian gamers, but to take a slice of India to the world at large."
Started by brothers Abhaas Shah and Prateek Shah, Studio Sirah builds mid-core games with an uniquely Indian flavour for mobile and PC.
The startup had earlier had raised $830,000 seed funding from Lumikai and a clutch of angel investors, including Nodwin Games founder Akshat Rathee, Stillfront Games chief operating officer Alexis Bonte, InMobi cofounder Piyush Shah, BCG partner Roshni Rathi, and Google Cloud Asia Pacific gaming head Sameer Pitalwalla.
Read: Indian gaming studios see big action in 2022; take bolder, ambitious bets
Studio Sirah's first title 'Kurukshetra: Ascension' is a free-to-play card battle strategy game themed on India's two great epics - the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Players take the roles of ancient legends such as Arjuna and Sugriva, collect divine Astras and mythical creatures (from Apsaras to Daityas), and battle it out to the top in online duels.
Studio Sirah stated that it is now adding in an "expansive story mode" that will comprise "warring gods, conflicting philosophy, and the nature of Dharma itself, where player choices determine the fate of the universe". Kurukshetra-Ascension is available in early access on Google's Play Store and Valve's Steam and claims to have clocked over 120,000 organic downloads in the beta phase.
"There is immense potential for more core IPs to come out of India. With stellar artwork and innovative gameplay – Kurukshetra has already garnered a lot of appreciation from users and we are excited with what lies ahead" said Vamshi Krishna Reddy, Partner at Kalaari Capital.
Games based on Indian themes on the rise
With India’s gaming market reaching an inflection point in terms of scale and the propensity to pay, startups are increasingly basing their video games on Indian stories and themes for wider adoption by players.
Justin Shriram Keeling, founding general partner at Lumikai noted that their recent ‘India State of Gaming 2022' survey indicates that 80 percent of players have a strong tendency to play games with Indian IP.
"We believe that games with culturally resonant themes have the potential to significantly disrupt the Indian gaming market – especially in the midcore category. We’re excited to see Studio Sirah evolve to the next stage in their vision to create world-class IPs with culturally resonant content," he said.
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Domestic gaming studios are also eyeing an opportunity to build video games based on the Indian cultural ethos that can be exported to global audiences.
India is the fastest-growing games market in Asia, both in terms of revenue and gamers, with its mobile and PC gaming revenue projected to reach $704.5 million in 2022, according to Niko Partners, a market research and consulting firm that covers video games, e-sports, and streaming in the continent.
This is set to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 21.1 percent to touch $1.4 billion in 2026. This does not include revenue generated by real money games. About 34 percent of gamers in India spent money on non-RMG titles in 2022, the firm said.
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