Dhoni, Pandya, other Indian cricketers back gaming start-up LightFury amid $11mn investment boost: 'They'll do good job'

Star Indian cricketer MS Dhoni along with many others has invested in the gaming startup LightFury Games has raised $11 million (about Rs 103 crore) in a funding round with several Indian cricket players also backing it strategically.

The gaming start-up which is currently building a big-budget cricket title, E-Cricket, announced on Thursday that it has raised $11 million funding from new and existing investors. Reports state that apart from Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shreyas Iyer, Tilak Varma and Sai Sudharsan also participated in the funding round.

Dhoni backs gaming project

Dhoni said that he backed the idea because he felt that there was a gap in cricket gaming. He expects the start-up to a "good job"

“When LightFury showed me what they were building, I felt they were trying to close that gap," the former India captain said.

"It’s a big undertaking, building something like this out of India for a global audience. I’m here to contribute what I can from my time in the game, and make sure the details hold up. The rest is up to them, and from what I’ve seen, they’ll do a good job,” he added.

More from Sports News

Hardik Pandya also spoke positively of the development.

“Cricket is pressure, skill and entertainment all at once. Fans want to feel that energy. What excites me about eCricket is that it is not trying to make cricket smaller for gaming. It is trying to make gaming rise to the scale of cricket,” Pandya said.

LightFury Games CEO Karan Shroff said that the game will be a real-time multiplayer game which will be available on mobile first before it is expanded to PC and console.

“For us, this is about more than just launching a game. India has long been a gaming market, but now it is starting to build. We want to show that India can create world-class gaming IP (intellectual property) for global audiences,” Shroff told the Economic Times.

“India is a mobile-dominated gaming market. The highest number of users are on mobile, and since this is a real-time multiplayer game, we want as many players online as possible. That scale is best achieved on mobile. Over time, we plan to expand to PC and console, likely around 2027-28,” Shroff said.

Shroff also said that the the rollout will be phased, with more than 150,000 users already signed up for early access.

The start-up had also announced earlier this year that it had secured the global player roster license of over 600 professional cricketers including stars like Chris Gayle, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Kane Williamson, Pat Cummins, Jos Buttler, Travis Head and Andre Russell, marking one of the largest rosters in cricket gaming.