Krafton, maker of PUBG and BGMI, commits $250M more to India, pushing total investment past $500M as it expands into AI, robotics, and deep tech.
Krafton Bets Another $250 Million on India, Expanding Far Beyond Gaming Into AI and Robotics
South Korean gaming giant behind PUBG and BGMI is turning India into a global hub for deep tech, signaling how emerging markets are becoming central to the next phase of the AI race.
Krafton, the South Korean gaming powerhouse best known for PUBG and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), is making one of its boldest moves yet in the Indian market. The company announced it will pour an additional $250 million into India over the next three to four years, a commitment that pushes its total planned investment in the country past the half billion dollar mark. Unlike its earlier bets, this new capital isn’t just about gaming. Krafton is positioning India as a launchpad for artificial intelligence, robotics, and other deep tech ventures.
For American readers tracking the global tech and gaming landscape, this announcement is a signal worth paying attention to. It reflects a broader trend among major international tech players: treating India not merely as a consumer market to sell into, but as a strategic base for building the next generation of technology.
A Half Billion Dollar Commitment to India
The freshly announced $250 million pledge builds on top of more than $250 million Krafton has already funneled into India since 2021. Combined, that brings the company’s total investment commitment in the country to over $500 million, a substantial figure for any single international market, let alone one where Krafton’s flagship product has been banned not once, but twice.
Notably, this new funding is separate from another major initiative: a $670 million India focused growth fund that Krafton launched in December 2025 alongside South Korean internet conglomerate Naver and asset manager Mirae Asset. Krafton had already committed roughly $137 million toward that fund’s first close. Combined, these overlapping investment vehicles show just how central India has become to Krafton’s long term global strategy, well beyond its origins as a mobile and PC gaming company.
Why India Matters So Much to Krafton
India’s appeal to global tech companies is well documented, but the scale bears repeating. The country has more than a billion internet subscribers and upwards of 700 million smartphone users, making it one of the largest digital consumer markets on the planet. For a company whose core business depends on mobile engagement, that scale is nearly impossible to ignore.
Krafton’s foothold in India was built on the back of BGMI, a version of PUBG Mobile customized and localized for Indian audiences. That title alone has racked up more than 260 million downloads, cementing Krafton’s position as one of the most recognizable gaming brands in the country. But rather than treat India purely as a distribution market for existing games, Krafton has spent the last several years using the country as a springboard into adjacent industries, funding local startups across gaming, media, and technology sectors.
A Rocky Road: Bans, Pivots, and Comebacks
Krafton’s history in India hasn’t been a straight line of success. In 2020, the Indian government banned PUBG Mobile along with hundreds of other apps linked to Chinese companies, amid rising geopolitical tensions between India and China. That ban forced Krafton to rethink its entire approach to the market.
The company’s response was to rebuild from the ground up. It launched BGMI in 2021 as a rebranded, India specific version of the game, cutting ties with Chinese publisher Tencent Games and migrating its India based servers to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. These moves were clearly designed to satisfy New Delhi’s data security and sovereignty concerns.
Even that wasn’t enough to avoid further disruption. In 2022, Indian regulators banned BGMI as well, dealing another blow to Krafton’s business in the country. It wasn’t until the following year that the government allowed the game back on a three month trial basis, giving Krafton a second chance to prove its commitment to operating within India’s regulatory framework.
Rather than retreat after these setbacks, Krafton doubled down. The company has continued investing in and expanding around the BGMI franchise, and it now plans to roll out a lighter version of the game, BGMI Lite, in India by the end of 2026. This move is aimed at reaching users with lower end devices or limited data plans, a critical consideration in a price sensitive market.
Beyond Gaming: Building an India Based Startup Portfolio
What sets Krafton’s India strategy apart from a typical gaming publisher’s playbook is the breadth of its investment activity outside its core product line. The company has now backed roughly 18 companies in India, and notably, only four or five of those are gaming studios. The rest span a wider swath of the Indian startup ecosystem.
Krafton’s portfolio includes stakes in companies like Nodwin Gaming (esports and gaming events), Loco (live streaming), Pratilipi (regional language digital storytelling), Kuku FM (audio content and podcasts), and One Impression (influencer marketing). This diversified approach suggests Krafton views India less as a single vertical opportunity and more as a broad innovation ecosystem it wants a stake in, spanning entertainment and media all the way to artificial intelligence and robotics.
The company has also grown its physical and operational footprint in the country. Last year, Krafton acquired Nautilus Mobile, a Pune based game studio behind the popular Real Cricket franchise, giving it deeper roots in India’s homegrown gaming development talent. It has also launched KIGI Academy, an industry academia partnership designed to train the next generation of Indian talent in game development and digital content creation. This is an investment in human capital that could pay dividends as Krafton expands into more technical fields like AI and robotics.
Timing: A High Profile Meeting With India’s Prime Minister
The announcement wasn’t made in a vacuum. It came shortly after Krafton chairman Chang Byung gyu met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. According to Krafton, the two discussed ways India and South Korea could deepen collaboration across gaming, broader technology sectors, and emerging fields. That conversation appears to have set the stage for this expanded investment announcement.
Meetings of this kind often carry diplomatic as well as commercial significance, particularly for South Korean companies operating in India, where geopolitical dynamics (as seen with the earlier PUBG ban tied to China tensions) can directly affect business operations. A high level government meeting preceding a major investment announcement suggests Krafton is not just chasing market opportunity, but also actively managing its relationship with Indian policymakers.
What This Means for the Broader Tech and Gaming Industry
For a U.S. audience, Krafton’s expanded bet on India fits into a larger pattern reshaping the global technology landscape. As AI infrastructure costs soar and competition intensifies in mature markets like the U.S., Europe, and China, companies are increasingly looking to India for two things: a massive consumer base and a deep, cost competitive talent pool in engineering, AI research, and robotics.
Krafton’s move also illustrates how gaming companies are increasingly diversifying beyond their core products. Much like other entertainment and tech giants have used gaming as a foothold before expanding into streaming, AI, or hardware, Krafton appears to be using its established brand recognition and market presence in India to branch into technology areas with far larger long term growth potential than mobile gaming alone.
Whether Krafton’s deep tech ambitions in India pay off remains to be seen, especially given the company’s turbulent regulatory history there. But the scale of this latest commitment, more than half a billion dollars total, layered across direct investment, a dedicated growth fund, acquisitions, and talent development programs, signals that Krafton sees India not as a market to occasionally revisit, but as a long term strategic priority central to its future beyond gaming.
Key Takeaways
Krafton is investing an additional $250 million in India over the next three to four years, bringing its total planned investment to more than $500 million.
The new funds target AI, robotics, and deep tech, a significant expansion beyond Krafton’s gaming roots.
This investment is separate from a $670 million India focused growth fund Krafton launched with Naver and Mirae Asset in December 2025.
Krafton’s India journey has included two major regulatory bans (PUBG Mobile in 2020 and BGMI in 2022), yet the company has consistently doubled down on the market.
Krafton has backed around 18 Indian companies across gaming, media, and content, and plans to launch BGMI Lite by the end of 2026.
The announcement follows a meeting between Krafton’s chairman and Indian PM Narendra Modi focused on deepening India South Korea tech ties.
Credit : TechCrunch — Krafton doubles down on India with another $250M bet beyond gaming