Krafton invests $9 million in the livestreaming startup Loco

(Image credit: Gemwire)

Battlegrounds Mobile India developer Krafton has just announced an investment of $9 million (approximately Rs 66,81,15,000) in the Indian live streaming startup Loco. In the initial funding round the live streaming service will be spun off from parent company Pocket Aces which is a digital content creation studio.

According to a tweet from Krafton’s Head of Investments, Anuj Tandon, "Krafton's second investment in India is to back India's own game streaming platform - Loco. Its great to back @anipandita & @ashwinsuresh as Lead investors in their Seed round as they build this rocket ship."

Krafton 's second investment in India is to back India's own game streaming platform - Loco. Its great to back @anipandita & @ashwinsuresh as Lead investors in their Seed round as they build this rocket ship. Photo from better times along with @hisohn(1/2) https://t.co/Pc6msBMKHM pic.twitter.com/ulSpd2zttGJune 28, 2021

This was initially reported by Bloomberg, and is the second round of investments from Krafton in India. In the initial round Krafton had announced that it would invest $100 million in India.

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Earlier this year Krafton Inc. also announced an equity investment of Rs 164 crore in esports firm Nodwin Gaming. And with the present investment, it seems quite clear that the company is trying to curry favour with the players in the Indian gaming ecosystem to ensure a position for Battlegrounds Mobile India.

With Battlegrounds Mobile India currently in early access, Krafton has seen problems with the game communicating with Chinese servers, the reason PUBG Mobile was banned.

With the reveal of the China data sharing issue, Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on India’s Data Protection Bill and BJP Member of Parliament, Meenakshi Lekhi has asked MEITY "to look into it" in her tweet. While MEITY had previously clarified that it can't ban a game before launch this new development along with pressure from other politicians might push it over the edge.

This was followed up by an update to the game, which seems to fix the issue of data sharing with China. And Krafton even issued a statement regarding the data-sharing issue assuring that it is "implementing the industry’s toughest standards for data security". Hence Krafton would want to cover all bases before officially launching the game.