Rusk Media’s ₹100 Crore Pre-Series C Round Led by Nazara Technologies

Mumbai-based digital entertainment company Rusk Media raised ₹100 crore in a pre-Series C funding round on June 18, 2026, with listed gaming and sports media firm Nazara Technologies leading the investment. The round included existing investor InfoEdge Ventures, existing investor IvyCap Ventures and a consortium led by Audacity VC, and brings representatives from Nazara and Audacity onto Rusk’s board of directors.

Rusk Media will use the fresh capital to scale its youth-focused reality formats into new languages and overseas markets, and to build proprietary AI production tools the company says will lower costs and speed up content delivery. Nazara, a gaming company that is already an investor in Rusk, deepens its exposure through the round and gains exclusive monetisation rights over new IP built under the partnership, per the company’s regulatory disclosure of its Rusk Media investment.

The deal is one of the more visible bets a listed Indian gaming company has made into a content studio. It places Nazara at the centre of a mobile-first entertainment buildout aimed at the same Gen Z audience Nazara already chases in mobile games. Nazara had already disclosed a Q3 FY26 board approval of up to ₹15 crore into Rusk; the new round sizes that position and adds exclusive monetisation rights over new IP built under the partnership.

Rusk Media Closes ₹100 Crore Pre-Series C Led by Nazara

The round, worth about $10.6 million, was led by Nazara Technologies, an existing investor in Rusk Media, and announced on June 18, 2026. InfoEdge Ventures, IvyCap Ventures and a consortium led by Audacity VC also participated in the pre-Series C. As part of the deal, representatives from Nazara Technologies and Audacity VC will join Rusk Media’s board of directors. That gives the lead investor and the new backer formal seats at the table. The transaction brings Audacity VC’s consortium onto Rusk Media’s board for the first time, per the company’s announcement.

The round sits inside an unusually compressed funding cycle. Rusk Media closed a ₹103 crore Series B in October 2025, a mix of primary and secondary transactions with IvyCap Ventures, LC Nueva, InfoEdge Ventures, Woori Venture Partners and the company’s promoters. The new pre-Series C, raised less than eight months later, is roughly the same size as the Series B.

Nazara’s stake in the new round is sized at up to ₹15 crore, per a Nazara regulatory disclosure, giving it 1.36% of Rusk’s fully diluted share capital. The listed gaming company is paying for 1,278 pre-Series C compulsorily convertible preference shares in cash, a slice of a wider ₹100 crore round in which InfoEdge Ventures, IvyCap Ventures and a consortium led by Audacity VC also participated, per the company’s announcement.

Where the Money Is Going

Rusk Media’s announcement names four priorities for the fresh capital: growing its owned mobile platform, taking flagship IPs international, building AI production tools, and launching a new pipeline of sports and audio-first content. Each priority maps to a different part of the company’s growth thesis, from owned platform reach to international market entry. The use of funds is the most concrete part of the announcement.

The biggest named beneficiary is Alright! TV, Rusk Media’s mobile entertainment destination built for Gen Z audiences. Part of the capital will fund proprietary AI production tools the company says can reduce production costs, increase content velocity, and enable scalable brand solutions. The other named IP destinations are talent reality franchise I-Popstar and unscripted reality dating show Engaged, both of which Rusk plans to take into new languages and international markets. A new pipeline of sports and audio-first content aimed at Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers is also in the works, with the wider buildout visible on Rusk Media’s website and content studio overview.

• Grow Alright! TV, Rusk’s mobile entertainment platform for Gen Z
• Scale I-Popstar (talent reality) and Engaged (dating reality) into new languages and international markets
• Build proprietary AI production tools to lower costs and speed up content delivery
• Launch a new pipeline of sports and audio-first content formats for Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences

Why Nazara Is Leading This Round

The pre-Series C is the second time Nazara has written a cheque into Rusk Media in the same fiscal year. Nazara’s Q3 FY26 financial disclosures disclosed that its board had approved a primary capital infusion of up to ₹15 crore into Rusk. The new round converts that approval into a sized position, and adds exclusive monetisation rights over new IP that Rusk builds for the partnership, per Nazara’s regulatory disclosure of the deal.

Nazara is a listed Indian gaming and sports media company. Its core business is mobile and online gaming, mostly in India. Putting money into Rusk gives Nazara a studio pipeline of mobile-first, Gen Z-skewing content that it can monetise through mobile games, per the regulatory disclosure. The thesis Nazara’s managing director Nitish Mittersain gave for the investment is youth-focused IPs, a growing direct-to-consumer platform, and what he described as a ‘technology-first approach to production’.

Rusk already counts Amazon MX Player and JioHotstar as distribution clients, and runs its own content under brand names like Alright!, Playground and LIT. The studio’s distribution footprint gives Nazara a direct channel for the new IP, per the regulatory disclosure. Nazara has separately disclosed Centres of Excellence in AI and data analytics as part of its 2026 growth plan.

The Rusk investment sits inside that wider Nazara buildout, per the company’s announcement. The partnership gives Nazara exclusive monetisation rights over the new IP and the ability to commercialise characters and creators through mobile games, with the company structure visible on Rusk Media’s investor relations page.

Two Rounds in Eight Months, One Loss-Making P&L

Rusk Media has now closed two funding rounds inside eight months. The Series B closed in October 2025, and the pre-Series C was announced eight months later in June 2026, at roughly the same valuation stage. Three institutional rounds now sit on the cap table since 2020, per Dealroom. The new round is roughly the same size as the Series B, raised just eight months earlier. Nazara is a returning investor in this round, having already backed Rusk before, per the company’s announcement.

The financial picture behind the round is still a mixed one. The company remains loss-making, and the pre-Series C will need to fund runway through a period in which two distribution heavyweights, JioHotstar and Amazon MX Player, sit on the demand side of the market. Per Dealroom, AI-driven production tools could be a differentiator for Rusk, or a distraction if they fail to deliver meaningful cost savings at scale.

The fresh capital is meant to fund the AI build and a wider international push at the same time. The Rusk Ads business, which the company also operates to help brands run content-led campaigns, gives the studio a non-OTT monetisation line it can scale alongside the new formats.

• Series B close, October 2025: ₹103 crore, led by IvyCap Ventures
• Pre-Series C close, June 2026: ₹100 crore (~$10.6M), led by Nazara Technologies
• Total raised to date (per Dealroom): ~$32M across three rounds since 2020
• Rusk Media FY25 revenue (per Dealroom): ₹81.38 crore, up 43%
• Rusk Media FY25 loss change (per Dealroom): narrowed nearly 12%

India’s Mobile-First Content Race in Context

Rusk Media sits inside a digital media market that includes micro-dramas, AI-generated content, and the mobile-first video category it was built to serve. Other Indian content startups are chasing the same wave. AI-powered entertainment startup Mythik raised money last month to recreate Indian mythology, history and folk stories into short videos of 10-12 minutes, per Inc42. Mythik’s format and audience overlap with Rusk’s, even if its IP source material is different. Rusk’s distribution footprint already includes Amazon MX Player, JioHotstar and its own Alright! TV platform, a question of where the human in the loop still sits in AI-led production that has been worked out unevenly in Indian advertising, where the camera has been automated but the crew has not left the set, per a recent look at the country’s top AI ad directors shows.

The risk for Rusk is that the same distribution incumbents sit on the demand side. Per Dealroom, JioHotstar and Amazon MX Player are deep-pocketed incumbents controlling distribution, and two funding rounds within eight months is aggressive. Rusk Media is still loss-making, and the unit economics on the AI build are the open question.

• India digital media market by 2034 (per IMARC): $111.2 billion
• Nazara Technologies market cap (per TipRanks): ₹88.97 billion
• Mythik raise, May 2026 (per Inc42): $5 million (~₹48.4 crore)

The Board Around the Table

Two new board seats are part of the deal. Representatives from Nazara Technologies and Audacity VC will join Rusk Media’s board of directors as part of the transaction, per the company’s announcement. For Nazara, the seat formalises a relationship that began before this round, since the listed company had already been a Rusk investor and had disclosed a Q3 FY26 board approval of up to ₹15 crore in primary capital into Rusk. The transaction brings Audacity VC’s consortium onto Rusk Media’s board for the first time, per the company’s announcement.

Rusk Media was founded in 2019 by Mayank Yadav, Shananu Singh and Karanvir Sofat. The company makes mobile-first content across fiction and non-fiction categories, with brands like Alright! (a fictional channel), Playground (gaming entertainment), and LIT (food, fashion and travel). Its clients include OTT platforms such as Amazon MX Player and JioHotstar.

Yadav described the round as a step toward world-class entertainment infrastructure from India. Mittersain cited youth-focused IPs, a direct-to-consumer platform, and a technology-first approach to production as the basis for long-term value in modern media businesses.

Our goal has always been to redefine storytelling for the new generation. By combining AI-driven production with agile formats, we are building world-class entertainment infrastructure from India for the world.

Mayank Yadav, co-founder and CEO of Rusk Media, said in a statement to the press on June 18, 2026, the day of the announcement.