The head of content marketing at Anthill Ventures, Aashmita Nayar shares a perspective on the potential of the IPL for the startup industry
The onset of summer in the Indian subcontinent brings with it an extra dose of cricket fever largely undisturbed by our festive calendar: The inescapable presence of the Indian Premier League of Cricket has been presenting entertainment and opportunity for Indian audiences and the economy alike, not only making it an incredibly successful startup for the 17 years by itself, but also for the startups it has delivered a helping hand to.
After the funding winter of 2023, figures are up by 68% this year – according to a recent report by INC 42, over 30 startups are participating in the 2024 edition of the IPL as compared to last year’s number of 19. As many as 14 D2C startups are being associated with this year’s IPL with Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bengaluru garnering massive attention from startups across the board – both teams have partnered with at least 10 startups this year.
Meanwhile Delhi Capitals, Lucknow Super Giants, Kolkata Knight Riders, Punjab Kings, Rajasthan Royals, and Sunrisers Hyderabad have tied up with four startups each, while Chennai Super Kings has received the lowest startup interest with two partnerships.
Even with fintech startups partially bowing out of the game, the prospect of reaching a staggering viewership count of 505 million that the IPL presents seems to be just too alluring to pass up. Couple that with the official IPL broadcaster Star Sports exclusive initiative for startups – The Startup Power Play that delivers opportunities to one startup per match day to showcase a 60-second TV commercial during the live broadcast – and as an entrepreneur you’re hard-pressed not to feel left out. In fact, according to this report, almost half of the sponsors for streaming partner Jio Cinema are startups as compared to last year where only one startup - Dream 11 sat on the list of 23 sponsors. Given the stance even the teams take to support causes - who can forget the elegant lavender jerseys donned by the Gujarat Titans last year - “imagine the gravitas of advertising the world’s first non-invasive, cost-friendly and completely painless swab kit to detect early stages of oral cancer to millions; or as we know them ErlySign who have just acquired their first CDSCO approval for large-scale clinical trials,” says Prasad Vanga, CEO/Founder of Anthill Ventures, a speed scaling platform that invests in, and scales, early-stage companies in Media, Urban Tech and Health Tech.
IPL aside, cricketers such as Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli and Mahendra Singh Dhoni along with others are also moving quickly to adopt the role of investors in startup brands, albeit more on the D2C side with some casual gaming and fintech products thrown in. Speed accelerator platforms such as Anthill Ventures are teaming up with focused portfolio companies that offer a unique perspective to the IPL especially from an AI perspective and a sustainability quotient. Considering the furious pace at which cricketing grounds are coming up in places such as Kashi, Varanasi and in Uttar Pradesh, it may suit companies to employ proptech startup portfolios such as Assam-based Zerund who are gaining ground for their light-weight, cost-efficient, environmentally-friendly bricks with 4 million+ units already sold, or wastewater management offering startups such as Earthfokus who have already saved the country over 5 billion litres of water since their inception in 2019 (both companies fall under the proptech accelerator program of Gruhas Aspire powered by Anthill Ventures.)
Sports tech also continues to gain attention: Last year saw Shikhar Dhawan launch a fund with an initial corpus of $75 million to invest in sports tech start-ups, while 2021 witnessed Dream 11’s investment moniker Dream Capital launch a $250 million fund to back sports tech, gaming and fitness start-ups with a multi-stage investment strategy. Take Anthill Venture’s portfolio company Gods of Cricket, the world’s first-ever multiplayer game that allows 22 or 11 vs 11 players to play cricket in different formats (street or pro) in real-time from anywhere across the world through virtual avatars. A recent launch by the Gods and Heroes in Hyderabad, GOC features incredible graphics that deliver enthusiasts a unique AAA-level gameplay with a dynamic career mode, setting it up to match a certain beloved football-based game.
The adoption of ground-breaking on-ground (such as the Hawk-Eye, Zing Wicket System and others) and mobile-friendly technology (in the form of entertainment apps) also provides some heavy motive for startups and establishes how the IPL is not gathering any moss when it comes to bringing in more audiences and retaining those by delivering post-match content that can be analysed for hours by cricket fans – a report by AppsFlyer, a SaaS mobile marketing analytics and attribution platform, shows a significant jump in installations for entertainment and social apps during the 2019 season: While organic installations for entertainment apps witnessed a 50.34% increase during IPL season, social apps witnessed a more than 70% increase for the same. Formerly known as Toch, the Anthill-powered company’s AI-powered video editor christened Magnifi, allows media houses and content owners to leverage cutting-edge AI and ML technology to deliver fast-paced digital-ready video highlights across 30+ social media platforms by effortlessly extracting key moments and thereby unlocking new revenue streams through smart content extraction and creation.
Therefore, regardless of which team acquires the trophy, Indian startups appear to have already hit it out of the park – from food tech to gaming, merch to fintech, everyone wants in on a bit of that revered IPL gold dust.
As the Indian Premier League of Cricket continues strongly into the second half of this year’s edition, backed by and giving opportunities to startup sponsors from every possible genre, one wonders if the 2025 prep for those entrepreneurs feeling the FOMO this year has already begun.
