In 2021, the hottest room in Indian gaming had cash going in at one door and cash coming out the other. Anuj Tandon had a corporate cheque book and a mandate to deploy it in India, and he kept walking past that room.
Anuj Tandon is a Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, the global gaming and interactive media investor with over $1 billion in assets under management, where he leads emerging markets including India and the Middle East. Before BITKRAFT, he put more than $135 million into eight companies for PUBG maker KRAFTON in under two years. None of it went into real-money gaming.
In August 2025, parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act in three days. Real-money gaming became illegal overnight, and Dream11 paused paid contests that had made up over 90% of its revenue.
Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights.
Who is Anuj Tandon?
Around 2010, Tandon co-founded Rolocule Games in Pune, making paid mobile games. Dream11 later acquired the studio, in 2021. By then Tandon had helped build the publishing business at Nazara Technologies and spent five years as CEO of YOOZOO Games’ India office, working for a Shanghai-listed publisher.
In 2021 he joined KRAFTON as Head of Corporate Development and Investments for India and MENA. His bets there included Nodwin Gaming, Loco, FRND, Kuku FM and Nautilus Mobile, in which KRAFTON later bought a controlling stake for $14 million. After two years as CEO of Gaming at JetSynthesys, he joined BITKRAFT in December 2024 as its first partner on the ground in India.
What is BITKRAFT Ventures, and how big is it?
BITKRAFT was founded by Jens Hilgers, who earlier founded esports operator ESL. The firm manages over $1 billion across more than 130 companies. About 70% sits in equity and 30% in a separate token fund.
Tandon works on the equity side, which splits roughly 40% gaming, 40% “applied gaming mechanics” (consumer apps like Duolingo and Discord that borrow gaming’s engagement loops) and 20% platforms and tech, such as Epic Games’ Unreal Engine.
Its India portfolio includes Bengaluru studios AiroClip and Chaos Engine Labs and enterprise AI platform Actioneer. In June 2026, KRAFTON India invested in BITKRAFT’s Global Fund, making Tandon’s old employer one of his limited partners.
Why did Anuj Tandon never invest in real-money gaming?
Tandon defines real-money gaming as cash in, cash out, with a game in the middle. He had no quarrel with the people building it.
First of all the founders of the market are some of the best I’ve seen... It’s just that the sector for me was too grey.
His caution came from YOOZOO. In China, Korea and across East Asia, he had seen real-money games either banned or regulated too tightly to produce venture returns. He expected Indian regulators to follow eventually. When the 2025 Act ended a sector Outlook Business sized at about $3.2 billion, none of his portfolio went down with it.
Why won’t BITKRAFT back an Indian PC or console studio yet?
Tandon calls studios the riskiest asset class in gaming. After the 2021–23 valuation boom, he now sees about one strong studio deal a year where he once saw five. Indian PC and console development, with pockets in Pune and Chennai, is still at the incubation stage. For seven years his predictions panel at the India Game Developer Conference has called the breakout for the following year.
Talent density is the gap. In hybrid-casual mobile games, the best retention numbers come from Turkey.
There’s something in the waters in Istanbul that they figured out mobile gaming.
His sharpest evidence is the 2020 app ban. Within six months, dozens of Indian TikTok clones launched. PUBG Mobile was banned at the same time, and in his recollection roughly one Indian shooter emerged. A game takes two to three years to build before anyone knows if it’s fun, and he needs about a hundred studios to pick two or three winners.
He remains bullish on exporting Indian mythology and stories to global players once production quality catches up.
Are micro-dramas a bigger opportunity than games?
Tandon’s best India bets have come from interactive media. Micro-dramas, vertical series in one- or two-minute episodes built to hook viewers in seconds, grew out of the reels habit. They earn through episode unlocks or subscriptions. He frames them as Candy Crush to long-form video’s Call of Duty: a format that widens the market rather than replacing it.
He prefers platforms with distribution, like Kuku FM, over micro-drama studios. Kuku FM and FRND, both backed by him at KRAFTON, are now in eight-figure annual revenue by his count, one of them in nine figures.
What does Anuj Tandon look for in founders?
At early stage the order is thesis, then founders, then traction. He looks for a “chip on the shoulder”, meaning proven domain expertise plus something to prove. He is wary of solo founders. His strongest green flag is people quitting good jobs to join before any funding arrives.
Pitch decks built with Claude are an orange flag, a sign of a casual attitude. The red flag is massaged data, such as GMV booked as revenue or creator payouts folded into the top line. That ends the deal, because a venture relationship runs six to ten years.
His advice to first-time founders starts with a warning that not every business should raise venture capital.
A 10 crore business turning out 2 crores with a five to seven people team is an amazing business to be part of.
Listen now!
Other ways to listen:
For more on India’s interactive media bets, read Founder Thesis’s conversations with Lumikai founder Salone Sehgal, Kuku FM co-founder Vinod Kumar Meena, and Loco co-founder Anirudh Pandita.
Sources
Indian Games Industry Veteran Anuj Tandon joins BITKRAFT Ventures (BITKRAFT Ventures)
Bitkraft Ventures hires Anuj Tandon to kick off game investments in India (VentureBeat)
Former JetSynthesys CEO Anuj Tandon joins BITKRAFT Ventures (YourStory)
KRAFTON India strategic investment in BITKRAFT Ventures’ Global Fund (The Wire / PTI)
Krafton hikes India bet with new $670M fund (TechCrunch)
Rolocule portfolio page (Blume Ventures)
Dream11 (Wikipedia)
From Unicorns to ED Raids: How Real-Money Gaming Unravelled in 2025 (Outlook Business)