Crafton raises its bet on India with a new fund worth $670 million

Krafton, the South Korean gaming company behind hit games like PUBG and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), is launching an India-focused growth investment fund, increasing its lead in the world’s largest internet user base.

This investment vehicle is called the Unicorn Growth Fund, and is a collaboration between Krafton, South Korean internet conglomerate Naver, and investor Mirae Asset. It aims to deploy up to 60 billion Indian rupees (about $669.3 million) over four years, Crafton confirmed to TechCrunch.

The fund, which will be managed by Mirae Asset Venture India, is expected to be set up in January and begin operations with an initial size of over INR 30 billion (about $334.6 million). Krafton will contribute 12.3 billion Indian rupees (about $137.2 million) at the first closing, the company said.

Naver’s capital commitment is expected to be “broadly comparable” to Krafton’s $137 million investment, a Krafton spokesperson told TechCrunch. The fund will not operate under strict state allocation limits, and typical investment sizes are expected to range between $10 million and $30 million, the spokesperson said.

Investments through the new fund will be treated primarily as financial positions rather than strategic bets, Crafton said, although the level of engagement with portfolio companies could vary depending on the opportunity and long-term potential of each company.

To date, Krafton has invested more than $200 million in India, supporting companies in the gaming, content and fintech space. Recent investments include fintech Cashfree and venture fund IMM Investment, alongside previous bets on gaming and content platforms such as Nodwin Gaming, Loco, Pratilipi and Kuku FM. The company also launched a gaming incubator in India in 2023, and acquired a controlling stake in Indian gaming studio Nautilus Mobile for $14 million earlier this year.

Crafton’s expansion into India was not without setbacks. New Delhi banned BGMI, the company’s flagship local title, in 2022, before allowing it to return in 2023 after a three-month trial approval. Crafton subsequently announced a $150 million investment commitment in the country.

BGMI, which has crossed 240 million downloads, launched in 2021 as a revamped local version of PUBG Mobile, another popular title banned by the Indian government in mid-2020 over national security concerns. Since then, Krafton has made a series of operational changes in the country — including severing ties with Tencent as its publisher and migrating its Indian servers to Microsoft’s Azure cloud — to address regulatory concerns.

With the new fund, Krafton looks to expand its India strategy beyond gaming, channeling capital into a broader range of technology startups, as it seeks to build a long-term presence in one of Asia’s fastest-growing digital markets.