Rusk Media, an Indian digital entertainment company aimed at GenZ audiences, has raised over $9.5 million in an extended series A funding round to launch a blockchain-based UGC-led gaming platform. Seoul-based DAOL Investment and Audacity Ventures led the extension round, with existing investors InfoEdge Ventures, Mistry Ventures and Survam Partners participating in the round.
Rusk Media has raised a total of $12 million in the last three years and counts Nazara Games and NODWIN Gaming as their investors, among others. The New Delhi-based company is known through its content and IPs on social channels Alright! and Playground, with over 500 million monthly views and their shows on OTT platforms.
“We have confidence in Rusk’s competitiveness in IP creation across fiction, non-fiction and e-sports entertainment. As investors from Korea, we have seen the immense potential of locally generated premium content and the scalability of strong IPs. We believe the company is well positioned to become an entertainment powerhouse with their plans on their IPs and IP-led gaming platform,” said Chihoon Hyun, Partner at DAOL Investment and co-lead investor for the current round.
Mayank Yadav, CEO of Rusk Media, stated, “With the behavioural shift of the digital native audiences—entertainment has transformed across 30-second snackable social videos, OTT shows, casual and AAA gaming. Our future plans are two-fold: first, scaling our content with OTT partners via our IPs in India and the rest of the world, with Playground leading the way for our global expansion.” He added that building a UGC-led social gaming platform will enable game developers to create and publish games on the company’s platform using its game developer app that plans to leverage blockchain technology.
While the company presently creates entertainment video content for its audiences, it will soon launch a UGC-led social gaming platform. UGC game creation is becoming widely popular globally, with platforms such as Roblox becoming staple destinations for the age group of eight to 14-year-olds in the US and Southeast Asia. Rusk’s platform will enable game developers to create games using freely available Rusk IP assets.
With these developments, an upcoming UGC social gaming platform and newly acquired capital, Rusk Media is committed to delivering on its promise of disrupting the entire entertainment ecosystem.