Karnataka creates Rs 20 crore fund for animation & gaming sector

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Information Technology Venture Capital Fund (KITVEN), which is the IT & BT Ministry’s accelerator for early stage startups, announced a corpus of Rs 20 crore for the animation, visual effects, gaming and comics (AVGC) industry at the inaugural day of GAFX 2024, the state’s flagship AVGC conference.

The state-backed venture capital fund will make equity investments worth Rs 0.5 crore to Rs 2 crore per company, and will be active for 10 years, with an option to extend for two more, focusing on early stage startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) engaged in the sector.

“We envision to position Karnataka as a global innovation leader in AVGC-XR technology and create a robust talent pool by transforming the state into a centre of excellence for AVGC-XR,” Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said at the GAFX inauguration. Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, stressed that the state government will provide consistent help required by the sector to achieve this feat, which includes an AVGC policy, the final draft of which will be released on Wednesday.

“I am sure that the newly drafted AVGC policy is going to be beneficial for the industry. It has been designed with great innovation to attract investment and opportunities for collaboration. Under this policy, we are focusing on skill development for future workforce through centres of excellence,” Shivakumar said.

During a fireside chat, Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan highlighted that while the government is making consistent efforts to grow the sector, it has to be competitive to ensure that investments are routed towards Karnataka.

He also highlighted there is a huge potential in the country for not just gaming, but gamification of areas related to education and enterprise training. Others pointed out that while e-sports, especially cricket, is a promising growth area, Indian mythology, history and religion can also become deep content sources.