Indian cricketers including MS Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, and Hardik Pandya have backed gaming startup LightFury in an $11 million funding round.
The round was led by investors like Blume Ventures, V3 Ventures, MIXI, and Times Internet.
The startup plans to use the funds to build a global AAA cricket gaming franchise, tapping into India’s massive cricket fan base.
Dhoni, Bumrah, Pandya Back Gaming Startup in $11 Mn Funding Round
The fresh capital will primarily go toward completing game development and strengthening the studio's live operations infrastructure, including post-launch content pipelines designed to deliver a continuously evolving player experience at scale
Investment
Summary
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Game-tech startup LightFury Games (LFG) has raised $11 million in a Pre-Series A round, with some of India's biggest cricket stars joining as investors. MS Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Tilak Varma and Sai Sudharsan have backed the funding round.
The round also saw participation from institutional backers Blume Ventures, V3 Ventures, MIXI and Times Internet.
The fresh capital will primarily go toward completing game development and strengthening the studio's live operations infrastructure, including post-launch content pipelines designed to deliver a continuously evolving player experience at scale.
Founded in 2024 by industry veterans Karan Shroff, Anurag Banerjee and Tina Balachandran, LightFury Games describes itself as India's premier AAA-focused game-tech studio. The 100-member studio is building its debut title, eCricket, a technically advanced, live-service-driven cricket gaming franchise aimed at a global audience.
Filling a Gap in Global Sports Gaming
The studio's pitch is straightforward. It said that cricket commands a global audience estimated at over 2.5 billion, yet the sport has never had a definitive, world-class video game, unlike football, basketball or American football.
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"India has long been one of the world's biggest gaming markets. Yet it has not been able to build a truly world-class AAA sports title. With eCricket, we want to change that," said Karan Shroff, Co-Founder and CEO of LightFury Games. The company plans to launch eCricket in 2026.
LightFury had earlier secured a global player roster licence covering over 600 professional cricketers, including Chris Gayle, Ben Stokes, Kane Williamson, Pat Cummins and Jos Buttler.
What the Cricket Stars Said
MS Dhoni said he felt the team was genuinely trying to close the gap that has long existed in cricket gaming. "I'm here to contribute what I can from my time in the game, and make sure the details hold up," he said.
Jasprit Bumrah pointed to the game's attention to authenticity. "Cricket is a game of fine margins, and that's what stood out to me about eCricket," he said.
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Hardik Pandya added that what excited him was the studio's ambition. "It is not trying to make cricket smaller for gaming. It is trying to make gaming rise to the scale of cricket," he said.
India's gaming ecosystem is projected to reach $9.89 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 14.55% between 2026 and 2031, while the global gaming market is expected to surpass $400 billion in the coming years. LightFury is positioning itself at the forefront of India's emergence as a global game development hub.