Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Akatsuki Entertainment Technology (AET) Fund, a Japan-based venture capital (VC) firm, is reportedly planning to make an average of $500,000 investments in five early-stage regional language startups in India, cited Mint.

The VC firm has launched a $50 million India and US investment fund in April 2019.

“Segments such as vernacular video, vertical media, mobile gaming, and live streaming will be the fund’s prime focus areas in India,” Yuki Kawamura, principal partner of AET said.

“While India’s regional vernacular audiences are now starting to consume digital content, the absolute volume (and also quality) of content in their languages is insufficient (as most of the content is in English). This is the reason why we see India (as a more investable opportunity) over other regions like Europe,” Yuki further added.

AET Fund is a venture capital fund specializing in the intersection of entertainment and technology. Through the creation of new entertainment, it aims to realize a world where people everywhere can find experiences that move them and become happier for it.

Since its India launch in March, AET has made 10 early-stage investments in India including in edtech platform Doubtnut, event discovery platform Little Black Book, electric vehicles company Yulu, coliving company StayAbode, B2B ecommerce startup ShopKirana, and vernacular mobile gaming software Mech Mocha.

Overall, the fund has made over 30 investments in Japan, India and the US since 2017.

Recognising the vast opportunity in rural India, international and Indian startups are deepening their focus in producing vernacular or regional language content.

A study by KPMG India and Google said that Indian language internet users are expected to grow at a CAGR of 18% vs English users at a CAGR of 3%.

In 2018, YouTube was also looking forward to grow its business in India through vernacular content as it expects viewership to grow by 40% for the contents produced in Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali in next year.

The VC firm typically invests through partner deals with other investment firms such as Accel Partners, Blume Ventures, Sequoia, Inventus, Chiratae, DSG, 3one4, Infoedge and Shunwei.

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