Those Who Understand Media, Understand Investment in Gaming: Sajan Raj Kurup, Ventureland Asia

Q) Your recent acquisition of Revenant Esports was much in news. Please tell us something about the new deal, how exactly it happened, and what made Revenant be a perfect investment? 

I have fundamentally been following the esports industry for a while and like to play games myself. Also, I have been keenly observing what’s happening around the world, which calls for an interesting opportunity. Pure play esports has the potential to make it to the Olympics. In India, these days, every aspect of gaming is suddenly being clubbed with esports. But pure-play esports is where you have athletes as it involves a lot of skills followed by a lot of gamers. My son plays a lot and that is how I got interested in gaming. 

There is a huge amount of watch hours that people really spend around this time. Rohit Jagasia, who is the founder of Revenant, is somebody I have known for a while. He is a gamer himself. When he came and discussed his venture, I immediately thought of just going for it. The scenario for India is incredibly well as far as gaming is concerned. I sort of looked at the plan and told Rohit about my vision on it. It was in great sync so I was all ready to back this. 

Q) Is it a wise decision to invest in gaming especially in these uncertain times? 

The best time to start something is when the market is depressed. This is probably a great time to take some calculated risks. While there may be uncertainty in a lot of places, we have really put the math right. From a business sense, investment in gaming is not just limited to one thing. The media is going to be big. Overall, I would say I can invest in anything that creates a positive environment at this juncture. All in all, gaming sounded like a great mix. It brings in entertainment, sports, skill, media, IP, and broadcast. 

I believe we cannot go wrong with an investment in something like esports right now as it is not something that asks you to go out and socialize. Esports is the most antisocial version of sports. With the anatomy of pandemics and how the world is right now going, we are going to live in a bubble for some time. It’s not going to get normal anytime soon. This could be a great time as the new culture is beginning. I really see the gaming industry flourishing. I personally don’t see it as a big risk but more of a calculated one.

Also, if you look at the audience, 90 percent of the esports audience is in the age bracket of 13-34. This is who every brand wants to talk to or a product wants to reach out to. If there’s a way, we can aggregate them. It is going to be incredible.

Q) Do you believe esports will rival the biggest traditional sports leagues in terms of future opportunities, and between advertising, ticket sales, licensing, sponsorships, and merchandising, there are tremendous growth areas for this nascent industry?

If you look at Korea and Japan, they are great examples of how esports has come out from playing on devices to having offline tournaments. The kind of tournaments the respective countries host and the people who sit across in an indoor stadium watching them play feel awesome. Esports definitely has an opportunity to be as big as any sport in the world. It’s highly competitive. I see no reason why it shouldn’t be in the same league as some of the largest sports events. There are conversations about including esports in Olympics. Anything that can come to that level of competitiveness, I am sure there is great potential. 

Q) Due to your marketing and advertising background, do you think to have an edge over other competitors in gaming?

One of the things that we are really doing with Revenant is sort of building a great viewership. There is an opportunity to create an incredible sort of captive media around esports. With our latest acquisition, we have got 20 million reaches which is big. My experience in advertising and brand communication comes naturally. Thus, our legacy meets well. One of the most important reasons why I invested money in it is to create a complete broadcast infrastructure.

Definitely, we will have an early mover advantage because of our legacy so it becomes easy to leverage on that. We can leverage it further with our experience in the industry. There will be a huge amount of data coming out of this entire thing. In fact, we are just in the process of launching our insight company. I see huge synergies as far as this is concerned.

Q) There is an increase in M&A in the Indian gaming space. How did venture money begin pouring into the gaming ecosystem especially in India? And how does the future look like for esports from an investor’s perspective?

India is a place where the entire investment community works on buzzwords. Esports has suddenly become a buzzword. We have seen big names coming into the foray and investing. The moment our news broke, 15 of the large funds and business houses approached us. There is a buzz that’s there as far as esports is concerned. I am not entirely sure everyone is aware of esports in its entirety; what it entails because it is moving in terms of a buzz at this juncture. I see a huge number of people saying this is something we need to punt on. We have not taken a punt but studied this for a while. The punt we took is who do we go with rather than we go in esports or not. I think people who understand media, definitely will find this as an extremely fertile space to invest in over the next 5 years. This is going to grow faster and bigger.

Q) What exactly will be the plans for Revenant in the immediate future? What other investment plans for you this year?

For Revenant, we want to build it as a platform that works at the heart of esports in India where we want to create a vertically integrated market. This includes a plan for content creation and dissemination of that content to millions of spectators and enthusiasts across the world. We also somewhere want to be leaders in competitive esports and work on our virtual capacity as well. There is also a focus on creating content division in the gaming arena. Fans are deeply engaged with this sort of content. 

While there is a male skew, it is incredible to see 38 percent to be women. We have taken initiative around bringing the best women teams in the country to our platform and build an all-women team. Our mission is to create the top five women team from India through Revenant. 

Further, we have made some investments in aggrotech, which is in the beta testing phase. It will come out shortly. We are also doing a little bit of healthcare tech. Content again is something we are routing to. In terms of pure-play tech, we have set up a company in Austin, Texas. We are in the process of bringing out a product which would be quite interesting for office goers. It is probably on how the future in offices is going to run.