Summary

The Offline Network Episode 35: B2B & Supply Chain (aired 2025-11-19). Guests: Nitin Jain from OfBusiness. Rishikesh: "On the other hand, at least, I mean, while we help the rest 90% of India, but not the top 10% for a long time." Rishikesh: "I think at the same time, keeping the cost low was required because we were doing the same business where the average ticket sizes were one fifth of what the other people had." Topics: venture capital and funding, AI and LLMs, consumer brands and D2C, B2B/SaaS. The Offline Network is India's live show on startups, tech, and venture — streaming M/W/F at 4 PM IST on YouTube.

Full Transcript

Utsav Somani: Hello listeners, welcome to the Monday stream of T1. Today we're going to hear from founders in the mobility and gaming space. But before that, a quick rundown and recap of what went... I mean, we've crossed a couple of anniversaries. It's the three-month anniversary for T1 as well. Today we complete three months and we've done over 30 live streams. So please leave us feedback and be part of our T1 community as well, that you can find on our WhatsApp page as well, and also on our website and also on the Instagram page. What else is notable, Dhruv?

Dhruv Sharma: It's also the six-year anniversary of the Wuhan Batman.

Utsav Somani: Haha, COVID-19.

Utsav Somani: It's actually been six years, man. Unbelievable. Feels like, I don't know, it feels ages ago, but also feels very recent.

Dhruv Sharma: Yeah, it's like 2026 is almost here. We're still talking about COVID-19. It had such a huge impact on our lives. And Shachi is also, I think, three years old now.

Utsav Somani: Three years old, November 30th. I think the world changed ever since then. I mean, it's moving at a rapid, rapid pace in terms of what we do, how we consume information, and what we generate in terms of new knowledge, or maybe just existing knowledge repackage. It's crazy. Yep. How often do you use ShachiBD now?

Dhruv Sharma: Very, very often. More than I could have admit. I'll have to check, like, how many times a day, but now I'm using more than just ShachiBD. It's the daily driver for the longest time, but now there's more tools in the reckoning.

Utsav Somani: Nice. And what other AI tools are you using these days?

Dhruv Sharma: So, Gemini is the one I'm spending most time outside of ShachiBD on right now. And, yeah, then, of course, sometimes it's application-specific. Did you watch the Elon Nickel comments pod?

Utsav Somani: I did, honestly. To be honest, to us, for me, right now, it's a big time commitment in terms of just what's happening in my personal life. So, I think I just try to stay away.

Dhruv Sharma: So, you're only producing T1 episodes and watching T1 episodes. T1 all the way, yeah.

Utsav Somani: Yeah, T1 all the way. But I think, I mean, what I've been reading on Twitter, I think people are enjoying it. I think it's an Elon 101, basically, but I think it's not new in terms of any new content or knowledge being out there.

Dhruv Sharma: I saw the trailer and it looked like they had the giggles and then I got the giggles. And I'm keeping all Elon content for when I go out and build a rocket company.

Utsav Somani: 2.6 million views or something. I think I saw last. Oh, my God. Crazy, yeah. Absurd. Insane. I hope some of them will convert to a Tesla purchaser as well in India because those sales are not doing that well. All right, let's talk about mobility with our first guest. Rishi, welcome to the show. Thank you, Utsav. Hey, Rishi. Rishi, we were talking. I mean, nobody needs an introduction to Rapido, so we're not going to ask you that question. But, I mean, talking about podcasts, we were just discussing the Elon Musk and the Nikhil Ghamat show and Dara was on his show as well. And he mentioned that now, instead of worrying about Ola, he worries about Rapido. What was your internal discussion after that comment?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): Good one. So, yeah, so I think the free marketing for sure. Any marketing is good marketing for us. So that's one. On the other hand, at least, I mean, while we help the rest 90% of India, but not the top 10% for a long time. Yeah, probably that marketing touched the right people. The more of top 1% of the country started noticing and started using or downloading the app more. And last month was our highest number of downloads ever in their lifetime, which crossed 10 million actually. So with that, I think the unknown part to everybody was, even when Dara mentioned, we were doing more number of drives than Uber already. So, yeah, so now we lead by a huge margin. We touch close to 5 million rides a day, or rather beyond 5 million rides a day on an average, while which is like I understand, which is higher than Ola and Uber put together in the country.

Utsav Somani: And you do multiple lines of businesses, right? You have a food business as well. You have a car business and a bike mobility business as well. How many users using that on a monthly basis now?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): So monthly basis, it's around 50 million. Wow. That's the while the install base is much higher, but yeah. All right.

Dhruv Sharma: Actually, when people talk about the Rapido story from the outside and talk about how you guys entered, were pretty much a duopoly existed and managed not just create space for yourself, but quickly ascend on the top of the leaderboard. We always have very surface level reasons for how you were able to do that, right? People will say, well, they started with bike taxis. Everyone will talk about replacing the commission model with a subscription model. But from your seat, from your vantage point, what else did it take to do this?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): No, I think one is a consistent effort on making the experience better. I think at the same time, keeping the cost low was required because we were doing the same business where the average ticket sizes were one fifth of what the other people had. So we built the business around very stringent cost structures that probably helped us when we went towards the categories where they were leading before, primarily auto and cabs. Those cost structures helped because we re-imagined how to look at the business for a cost structure, which they couldn't think of, or rather they weren't prepared for. So that gave us a lot of engine oil, I would say, to groom it. But at the core, it's about the user experience, the consistent user experience that's there. That was always higher. In fact, say most likely even now, if you try to open the app wherever you are, probably you will find the right much sooner than anybody else. And this has been the case for bike from very early on. Probably now we have been able to do the same with autos and cabs as well. So I think it's purely a consumer-driven business, I would say. While we kept a very large tab on the driver experience, we call him captain. And the experience of...

Dhruv Sharma: Can you tell us a little more about that? Why you chose to call him captains? Why did you humanize them the way you did?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): Right, absolutely. So I think, see, it's very easy to be seen driver as somebody with lower social image in general. But actually that ties back to a story where when one of our operations team member booked a ride, actually a person showed up in Royal Enfield back in 2016, which was new for an... Or rather we didn't imagine to attract people like that with a woodland shoe. And I clearly remember his image as well. That I think that's instigated us to dig deeper and find out who are the kind of people who are downloading and how we are treating them and how the customers were treating them more importantly than how we were treating them. So I think that's where it instigated us to... Can we have a new nomenclature for our drivers? And we thought captain suits it very well because after all, it's their platform that we are trying to build in, right? So I think, yeah, this was done probably 2016 or so, which with no interference of any of the founders, one of the teammates figured out and started... A few, what is that? Sharing a survey on what the name could be like. And he came up and he said, hey, can we have something like this? And only thing that we said was, yes, that's it, right? So I think a lot of these important decisions, including the naming Rapido was not taken by founders and we take very high pride in our team for doing so.

Utsav Somani: And staying with captains for a while. So you run a very unique pricing model as well for the captains, right? Where you don't charge commissions. So, I mean, do the driver earnings or the captain earnings remain... I mean, improve on your platform compared to other platforms?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): Absolutely, right? So see, the thought process is, can we give tools which can solve the problems on the ground, right? So most of the times, if you look back, if you look at large ecommerce or any marketplaces per se, and try to dig deeper on what their product teams are working on, where their efforts are going on, right? Most of the times it's about, hey, how could we incentivize more to actually get the right kind of business or the kind of supply? Or how do we discount more so that we could get the right... Or discount better, right? You build engines after engines. You create more and more tools to play around with the money that you have. But then those are not the actual problem solving. Once we said, moved out of the commission model to a subscription model, the very last thing that they did was, there was no discounts ever. I mean, they're on and there are no incentives there on. So if at all people need to be attracted to a system, it should have to be the actual problem solving than the money per se driving it, right? So we draw those factors away from the actual business and actually the problem solving started then. So we started figuring out more deeper problems that we hadn't solved for and probably solving them gave us much higher leverage. Now, for example, say something like bid that we call where the customer can choose what he would wanna pay and if the captain accepts, so be it. So I think there are small, small things that we tweaked in to make these changes and it turned out to be a huge change when we look back and connect these backwards.

Utsav Somani: Kudos to you for discovering this and the team also. Are there any global comparables? Like in the sense that has anyone followed this strategy in the ride healing market globally?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): No, I think probably a lot of people have been trying this from long way but then I think maybe on a larger scale or the scale that we operate in probably we are the only, I mean, we're the first one to do so. Now I think the whole of the country operates in the same model.

Dhruv Sharma: And Rishi, if you were talking to founders who are also building operationally heavy businesses that really move on the ground and they do like you have to go seek state-by-state approvals that can sometimes involve temporary setbacks, what would be your advice to them?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): No, I think if there is larger good that you're creating, see, okay, for sure there are so many such spaces which still haven't come to the purview of the government. And these are great business models that's already there. But yeah, I think you can't expect any government to anticipate these business models and create the governance before you show them the light. So I think that's a good problem to have in the country actually that say back in 2015, there was no state that had a legalized way of operating a bike taxi. Today, more than half the country is and there is support from the central or the center has, in the MOAD guidelines, there is a way to operate this. And this happened only with the support of the people. I think while we have been working closely with every government that's there, if at all there is a new change which increases the goodness or the overall value is higher, probably I think eventually things will fall in place. That's what we believe in and empower or rather that kept us going that, hey, if at all anything, we are adding more employment to the country and it's good for the country. So I think that's what we believed in and that kept us going. But now, yeah, things seems to be much more in confidence than any time before.

Utsav Somani: And I mean, there has been efforts to recognize the gig working economy as well with the new labor code laws. What's your take on them?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): So we are still reviewing it, but we have always been doing a lot of things that's already in that, including providing them insurance or creating a fund where they can actually use at the time of some setbacks in their life. So there have been multiple initiatives that we have already been working on, but yeah, it's good that there is a legal way of doing that. But yeah, frankly, we are still reviewing this thing. Maybe it's too early to comment on it actually.

Dhruv Sharma: Rishi, it appears to be to us that your hands are pretty much full with the work that you have, but do you guys still find time for moonshot bets inside of Rapido?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): Absolutely, right? So that's something we always would cherish working on because, I mean, if at all, I mean, there are only a few companies I could think of who could have a larger distribution power than what we currently have. And we see, hey, that could be a mode where we could work on, say, food delivery is one such moonshot that we are looking at, right? While it's very small today, maybe operating in a few areas of Bangalore, but what we believe in is what's convenience, food delivery, what's convenience today for a few people. We would want to make it be a utility that's available for everybody everywhere across the country. So probably more on that in the coming months and years to come.

Utsav Somani: Yeah, you're entering another competitive market with Zomato and Swiggy there as well. What's the thought process there? What is the unique sauce that you're bringing to the mix?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): Correct, absolutely. I think we are still very early on, we are learning how managing a threesided marketplace there. But yeah, luckily, two of the sides of the marketplace are something that we have been dealing with all the way. We are learning how to work with the restaurant, what's the, also trying the limits on till where we could stretch these and what's the right rules to be in place and what could be the additional value creation that we could offer so that we could create, we can expand this particular market is the core thought process. But yeah, like I said, if you're watching this and if you are any part of Bangalore, HSR, Core Mangala or BTM, you should go, you should try it and ping me or your feedback, probably I'll be happy to look at and take a side.

Utsav Somani: Amazing. And in terms of EV, your thoughts on the market and adoption overall?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): I think for a mass adoption, I think there is still a lot of time left. Particularly, I think that the battery technology is still yet to mature to a place where a country like India can afford or the price point where most of the Indians operate that become, I mean, that becoming affordable is slightly in the maybe beyond medium term, which is beyond three years at this point of time, beyond five years or so. But yeah, I think I'm hopeful in terms of making the whole of mobility as an industry or traffic as a situation better with electricity. I think, what do you say that? Even the pollution and there are multiple, now there is a larger force attack to make this more adaptable in the country. But it's still not anytime soon, I think the mass adoption could be on. Right, purely because of the limitations of the current technology in my understanding, which might push us until maybe we get some sort of a push from the government or some sort of breakthrough in technology per se. But yeah, we are all eyes open in terms of adopting any new technology that's gonna come directly or indirectly. Yeah, so probably we'll see. We are very much eager to figure out something for the country, but I don't see anything happening in the short term or the medium term per se.

Dhruv Sharma: Rishi, would you like to share your point of view on inorganic growth by way of acquisitions, now that you've built such a phenomenal large business? Sorry, come again. Your thoughts on acquisitions at this point in Rapido's acquisitions, acquiring companies?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): Ah, okay, acquiring companies, yeah. So I think the good part is that a lot of the small problems are now, the time to market for a lot of the small problems have been reduced drastically. So which makes just not for Rapido, for any large company planning to acquire another company. Previously, if there is a small use case that they would wanna work for themselves for, they could have acquired them. Now they could build it by themselves because development is getting cheaper. So that's a bad thing for the whole industry actually, that the number of acquisitions will go low in the years to come or already happening probably. But the good part is that given the upside of that is, everybody will start, the companies will start getting deeper in the problem statement that they are working on, which will force larger innovation at a time. And probably there'll be more great companies that'll be born out of the country in the few years to come or it's already happening. So that we could enter the industries that we have not thought of earlier. Including at Rapido, we are happy to look at any of those sorts because we have always been looking or have been very careful on acquiring companies because we don't wanna acquire to kill it, frankly. So if there is a very strong intention or intent or passion that matches for the work we do, probably it'll make sense to be part of the system. Because in the past, what are the two companies that we have acquired? One started our data science team. Today that's data science team is larger than our engineering team. What is that? Spearheaded by the same people. The other thing is a B2B business. All of the team are still intact in the company and they are spearheading the B2B business for us or they have grown over their capabilities there. But we believe that we would only acquire when there is a very high intentional mutual understanding and intent to work together and to make something better for all.

Utsav Somani: Rishi, as a final closing question, assume that you're writing your year-end LinkedIn post. How does India ride? And give us the trends that you've seen this year on Rapido for tier one, tier two, tier three, and even smaller cities. What were the trends that you observed?

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): This is something that we are just collating as well. But we have maybe have one or two things to share now. The thing is, I think in a brief moment in one of the tier one city when Rapido wasn't available on roads, specifically by taxi, there was an increase around 20% in traffic congestion on the road. I think there are multiple reports suggesting the same. And internally also we felt the same, or rather there are a lot of people who reached out to us in that period to make... Yeah, so we have a lot of support there, frankly, but nonetheless, I think that's an important trend that is helping, or rather we are looking more and more towards, hey, what are those sort of insights that we could generate? But that's clearly and clearly will top the table by default. Being able to help or rather solve in societal problems.

Dhruv Sharma: That is so cool, actually, like who would have thought, you guys are known as a mobility giant, but also a decongestion company.

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): Yeah, but we internally believe that on a meta level, what we are trying to solve is in traffic problem, nothing else, right? So because we are promoting the shared economy out there, and we want more and more people share their ride, and basically decongest the city and also be part of less pollution at large.

Dhruv Sharma: Rishi, thank you so much for coming on and sharing what you do and all the best to you. We're all rooting for your success and Rapido's success. Thank you for coming.

Rishikesh SR (Co-founder, Rapido): Thank you, Dhruv and Utsav there. Thank you, bye-bye.

Dhruv Sharma: All right, listeners, we are now going to... So that was Rishi of Rapido. We're now gonna welcome Tina from Light Fury Games. Hi, Tina. It's great to have you on.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Hey, thanks, Dhruv and Utsav. Great to be here and excited for this conversation.

Dhruv Sharma: Wonderful. So let's just start by having you tell all of us what Light Fury is and Light Fury does.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Cool. So we'd like to believe that we are a game tech company. At least that's how we would want ourselves to be known, addressed. For now, we are building our first game title, which is in cricket. It is named e-cricket. We are looking to launch this sometime early to mid of next year. So we've been into development phase for the last one and a half years, one and a half to close to two years, so to speak. But that's what we are on to. But otherwise, I think our heart and our purpose is larger than that. Definitely, I think we would want to put India on a global map when it comes to serious skillbased competitive game development is concerned. So that's what our intent is. But I think where our purpose would get met is when the community really appreciates the kind of quality of game that India has ability to build and develop, not only for India, but for the world. And it is not just confined to casual or hyper-casual games, but extremely highly competitive skill-based, which can venture into or foray into the e-sports trajectory. I think that's going to give us a huge sense of purpose. And also, I think there are going to be activity things, right? Like you are also solving for employment. You're definitely kind of putting India on a global map. You're also giving a lot of ambition as well as a lot of hope for indie game developers for them to kind of get on to do and do something really bold. So I think that's the purpose. That's what drives us. But in a nutshell, what we are on to for the next one, one and a half to two years or three years, because each of the AAA game development is a pretty long development cycle. Yes. And even longer live services. So we have plans ready for at least three years from the time that we game launch in terms of what are the features that will encompass, how is the progression and the meta system that's going to be for gamers to kind of be hooked onto a game. So it's a very long process in general, but e-cricket is our first calling.

Dhruv Sharma: Yes. And India runs in cricket and Chai and Bollywood, I guess. Tina, I was just thinking what would make this conversation very engaging for our listeners is if you gave us, I don't know, like a AAA 101 or like a glossary of terms that you guys now use as your second language. People may not be familiar with who are publishers, what are titles, so on and so forth. And we'll take it from there.

Utsav Somani: Tina, what's the chair that you're using? We've had some founders in the gaming space before and they've always had good chairs.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): You're intending to say that this is not a good one?

Utsav Somani: No, it's a good one. That's why I'm asking you.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): No, I think this is something which... So our office is in Gopalan Mall, if you're familiar about Bangalore. So this chair is their own manufacturing piece. I don't know the name of the chair, but serves the purpose for gamers. I mean, it actually kind of helps the spine so that you're on the system for a long, grueling period of time, especially the gamers and the developers. So it serves the purpose. But sorry, I don't know the name.

Utsav Somani: Yeah, now on to the last question.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): So AAA is actually a category for high-fidelity, high-quality games. It's a jargon or a terminology given for convenience by the gaming industry in itself. I'm sure it had its own course to kind of go through and that's how I think it got stemmed and then established. But mostly the games which have high budget, highly capital intensive, has a lot of complexities in terms of...

Dhruv Sharma: How intensive are we talking about, Tina? Give us a sense, like what's the range?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Any of the AAA games, like you can think of it on the likes of GTA, Call of Duty, and so on and so forth, right? I mean, this kind of gets on to anywhere from... I mean, I don't want to throw numbers. It may not be accurate.

Dhruv Sharma: But like hundreds of millions of dollars?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Hundreds of millions of dollars.

Dhruv Sharma: Isn't it like Hollywood productions?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): The game is almost like a movie production in itself, right? But a lot more complex because you have different aspects of it. I mean, in a filmography, you are just consuming it. But in a gaming expanse, you're not just consuming it, but you are also onto it in terms of playing it and kind of being part of the entire realm in itself. So imagine the kind of complexity in terms of from a tech standpoint from all of the aspects that we'll get onto. So AAA usually is very long development cycle time, requires huge number of capital. I don't think anyone has actually been able to crack with a fraction of the cost that we have spoken of. And I think that is one of the pieces that we are trying to solve because India definitely does not have a lot of talent. You need to find the right ones. You need to kind of play it smart in terms of fusing it with some bit of global talent who brings in that expertise of doing and building AAA games while India tries to learn from them and execute it. So if you are able to do that at a fraction of a cost, which I cannot throw the number today, but once the game is ready, we'll be able to give out the number as to how.

Dhruv Sharma: Also speaking of talent, Tina, and that is your role. I understand what kind of talent do you need to, would you need to pull this off?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): So it is very different from a consumer tech. It is very different from, you know, any other software engineering for that matter of fact. Here we are looking at game developers who have expertise in engines and these engines are like engines on which games can be developed and kind of, you know, extrapolated in whatever expanse you want. So we are working on Unreal Engine 5. It's an engine from Epic Games. So you need that expertise and know of how familiar are you with regards to Unreal Engine, not only in terms of engineering, but it's also in terms of art, animation, tech art and so on and so forth. So the roles that we look at are right from engineering, from game design, from product management, from animation, tech artists, character modelers who actually kind of, you know, put, I mean, for example, if in case you were to be one of the characters like a cricketer, they will model you as in your face, your features, your texture, the skin detailing and all of that and put onto the engine and then translate it onto the game. So it's as experienced and as nuanced as that. The longest of experience that an Indian talent would have had on an Unreal Engine is five years, right? Five to six years. Before that, it was not even existing. Everyone was on Unity. So, and why Unreal? I think people choose Unreal for different reasons. The expanse of Unreal is unfathomable, right? I mean, and the kind of visual expanse that it would get you in terms of environment, in terms of, you know, getting, taking you into a different realm. It's totally, you know, unimaginable, right? And that's kind of, you know, magic that Unreal has. You know, in fact, I think that now some of the movies are also kind of using these, you know, engines for them to kind of create that kind of VFX, graphics and so on and so forth. So, yeah, so five to six years was the best, and that would have been the most seasoned, you know, talent that you would get from India. And hence, you know, you needed people who have had the experience and legacy of building AAA games, like the games which have such complex systems, right? And cricket, you can imagine, I mean, think of cricket formats. Like today, when we consume cricket, we have ODIs, we have T10, we have T20, we have women cricket now, we have World Cup, we have IPL. So if Light Fury, and that's our ambition, to be pioneer in this franchise and to kind of, you know, build an empire in cricket and itself. And if you have to do that, how much of a complex systems would you have to kind of, you know, really navigate so that it can finally get onto an esports trajectory? Yeah, so that's the kind of, you know, I mean, in a nutshell, that's the kind of talent that we have. But I think what we can say is that we've been able to successfully manage to build a team of close to 100 people. And this is mixed bag, India, global team. Some of them are women developers as well. And I mean, I had to literally relocate and sell this vision to almost everyone because none of them were originally in Bangalore. So 90% of our talent that sits in Bangalore today in our studio, we're not from Bangalore. So yeah, it's been a great stride, but I think we've managed to assemble a good, incredible pedigree of team.

Utsav Somani: And India has 500 million gamers, give or take, right? I think approximately. How many of them, I mean, do you think like spend time on casual gaming? I'm guessing majority of them. And do you have any numbers on how many people actually pay for like an IP, like say a GTA or these AAA games?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): See, I think that I mean, what I can tell you is that confidently that definitely the numbers are shifting. The early conceived notion that India is not a paying market, monetizing in India is a hard thing to crack. It's not clearly so. Like cricket, it's ecosystem in itself, right? The games that I'm talking in the world of cricket and the games that we have today that itself collectively does close to about 30 million alone, you know, a year. And that's the number that we're talking about in terms of cricket genre, only speaking so, right? The numbers that a game like GTA, PUBG that does in India is mind blowing. You know, I mean, it is. And I believe that PUBG for PUBG India is one of the biggest revenue generating markets, you know, because consumption is huge. If you have a great product, definitely India pays for it. There is value that India audience or consumers see. So definitely the needle is shifting towards India being recognized as one of the largest economies from a gaming standpoint. And that's why you see a lot of companies are also putting their footing in terms of operations, you know, in India and hiring locally.

Utsav Somani: There's also one more effort, which is ongoing by this creator called Varun Maya. One of our live chat comments have come in. He mentioned that Varun Maya is also doing a Trillia game, right? That's right. It went viral in China. I read a post about it.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, that's what we are on in terms of, you know, in terms of the mission and the purpose that I spoke to you about. If in case India gets recognized and China is a huge market and a very competent market in terms of gaming development, publishing is concerned. So if in case it is going viral in China and if people like us are able to take that audacity, I mean, sorry, the audacity to build and develop games in India and put India on a global map, then I think, you know, we're talking about a huge revolution that we are able to create together. So, I mean, I'm rooting for my fellow, you know, developers, you know, in a AAA space or even in, you know, mid to hardcore games segment who can actually kind of, you know, change the narrative for India and put India on a global map.

Dhruv Sharma: You know, a couple of months ago when...

Utsav Somani: One fun question. How much do you think GTA 6 would cost to make? Are there any numbers out there publicly for it?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): I don't think so, but I think there are a lot of guessworks which is also happening within our studio. Not sure, but it could be anywhere from 6K to 10K. That's the hypothesis. Indian Rupee. For a subscription.

Utsav Somani: Oh, for a subscription, but I meant the game development itself.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Game development, I don't know, but it again could run into hundreds of millions.

Dhruv Sharma: Okay. You remember the largest state private transaction we covered once in the show? I think it was EA. It was like 44 billion or something. So, yeah, this stuff.

Utsav Somani: People are paying, I mean, a lot for these games and spending more time. I think it's a world that's heading towards I mean, just spending more time with self and I think gaming is a part of it also.

Dhruv Sharma: So, Tina, the question I was asking is a couple of weeks ago, I guess I've lost a sense of time, but when the government intervened and the real money gaming ban, a lot of the attention was just from the real money gaming ban. But the same guidance also spoke about games that I might just call them good games and a framework for India becoming a marquee destination of sorts. Yeah, sports. And did you have your eyes on that? And can you share your perspective on it?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Well, I'm happy because I think one of the posts and this is something which I recall when Mr. Prime Minister also addressed about gaming being one of the focus areas for India and trying to kind of build the entire ecosystem and support levers. He also took mention of AAA games and this is the first ever time in history that we are recognizing AAA as a category in itself, right? How many of us, including me? But I was with Tencent before this. So, you know, at least we knew that what AAA kind of, you know, mean, how does it work? What kind of, you know, qualifies to be AAA. But I mean, it is just to kind of correlate to the attention and the focus and also the potential that this space has, you know, for India, right? I mean, RMG, whatever said and done, I mean, it was done with all the, you know, enough groundwork in terms of why it should be taken as that kind of a decision for India. I do, you know, feel for the fellow founders in that space. But having said that, it has also impacted a lot of, you know, job losses. But it's an opportunity for others, right? Like we have been able to hire a couple of good developers, especially on the back end side, you know, from these companies that, you know, we are talking about. But I'm very happy and thrilled because it definitely puts focus back to esports and skill-based gaming, which is the sector we are in. And I mean, if opportunities are turning right for us, then I think there are going to be a lot more people venturing into this field. And like I said before, I mean, it is definitely kind of, you know, a very compelling moment for India. But because I feel that today, see, there's a lot of homecoming back talent also that we are seeing. Western market is going through whatever, you know, shifts and pivots in terms of how they consume, you know, or how those markets have been responding to the gaming scenes altogether. So there is a lot of Indians who actually left India because of the lack of opportunity. In fact, you know, my other co-founder, he left India close to about 15 years ago because he did not know which is the company that he could start his career with onto serious game development. But today, at least in Life Fury alone, we have close to about 10 to 15 folks who have returned back home. We call it homecoming. And have joined us because one, I think the mission and the purpose itself moves them. It's an India, you know, movement or a moment for that matter of fact. And second, there's confidence in the economic boost also that we are seeing. We are one of the powerful, you know, economies in the world. So if everything comes together right, I think we could really kind of, you know, dominate this market.

Dhruv Sharma: I'm curious how many competitive gamers you have at Life Fury. Do you guys do like, do you guys do like game-a-thons or something on Fridays, Saturdays?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Competitive gamers? What do you mean? Like hired from?

Dhruv Sharma: No, I mean, you know, your devs and other people on your team who also just love gaming as individuals.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): All of them. I mean, that's one of the requisites to, you know, make them join Life Fury, including all of us. We all game. Last Friday itself, we had our, you know, first internal version of the build getting ready. We, you know, parked aside two hours of our time just to kind of, you know, test our own, you know, internal build and the progress that we have made.

Dhruv Sharma: Is that like an early version of the prototype of the cricket game?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Yes, that's right. We've kind of, you know, made it like a, we call it friends and family. We're trying to kind of, you know, get the early feedback from friends and family so that it is, you know, in a controlled setting. And those feedbacks are very authentic, fair, you know, and it's coming from your own visuals, right? So definitely, I think that's the first step that we want to take. And then we are preparing for the launch the next year.

Utsav Somani: Just as a final closing question, apart from your own game, what are you playing these days?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): So Call of Duty we do, FIFA we do. And because FIFA and Call of Duty and all of them, I mean, you want to kind of, you know, really look at what are the kind of, you know, game mechanics, you know, how they have solved for, including eFootball, which is published by Konami. They also have cracked the monetization model very beautifully. And I think India is a huge contributor to their monetization piece as well. So these are the games that we play. Otherwise, I play a lot of stuff with my nephew, which are very hypercasual and casual in nature.

Utsav Somani: I love FIFA. And I mean, of course, now it's named differently. And what's your take on licensing? I mean, you're doing eCricket as well. So do you have licenses, agreements with everyone, all the cricketing body?

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): It is, I mean, it's a little soon to talk about, but definitely, I think that's the path for us to kind of, you know, really, if our ambition is to own the franchise, that's the path that we want to navigate it. And if you're, I mean, if you're wanting to give an authentic experience to the players, right, to the gamers, definitely they don't want general players like Deepak being written or, I mean, I have nothing against the name Deepak, but they want to play as, you know, either the legends or the marquee ones or anyone from the India team and so on and so forth.

Dhruv Sharma: So that's the licenses for player likeness and so forth.

Utsav Somani: Yes, I remember Pro Evolution Soccer. I think they had funny names, right? But their game mechanics was nice. So people started playing that instead of FIFA long back.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to, I mean, whenever build and, you know, the game is ready, you would love to invite the two of you.

Utsav Somani: All right, include us in extended friends circle.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): And I mean, sure, sure. I think we'll send the invitation to both of you as well.

Utsav Somani: Thank you so much for coming on the show, Tina. Have a wonderful week ahead.

Tina Balachandran (Co-founder & CPO, LightFury Games): Likewise, you too. Thank you.

Utsav Somani: All right, listeners. Hope you've had a good Monday with us and we'll see you on Wednesday, four o'clock. See you.