TOKYO -- Management consulting firm Dream Incubator is establishing a 5 billion-yen ($44.3 million) fund to cultivate promising Indian startups, particularly in smartphone-based entertainment fields such as games, music and video.
The venture fund, planned to launch in March, will operate for a maximum of 10 years. It will target businesses offering consumer-facing services. Dream Incubator is soliciting the participation of Japanese financial, information technology and entertainment companies, and mobile game company Akatsuki has decided to invest.
The consulting firm has found success investing in eight up-and-coming companies in India. By some calculations, the number of people using smartphones in that country will surpass 500 million by 2020, and the mobile game market will quintuple from 2015 levels to $1.1 billion. Expectations of rapid growth for businesses running smartphone-based services prompted Dream Incubator to set up the fund, whose specialty in Indian startups makes it a rarity among Japanese businesses.
(Nikkei)
