Salone Sehgal in Conversation with TON on the Future of India’s Interactive Media, Games & AI

India’s interactive entertainment landscape is undergoing a massive transformation—fuelled by a young digital-native audience, UPI-enabled microtransactions, and a surge in creator-led platforms.

In a recent conversation with The Offline Network, our Founding Partner Salone Sehgal unpacked the key forces shaping India’s next wave of interactive media innovation.

Conversation Highlights

💡 Interactive media wasn’t common parlance when Lumikai launched - Salone reflected on how few understood the category then, and how the firm’s conviction has shaped the ecosystem today.

💡 Investment strategy anchored in deep consumer insight - Lumikai’s thesis is driven by early trend-mapping, often informed by lessons from global markets like China.

💡 Backing category-defining platforms early - From spotting the micro-drama wave to investing in Eloelo, and now with Story TV becoming India’s top-trending app, Lumikai continues to bet on new consumer behaviours.

💡 Gaming as India’s biggest cultural force - With 591M gamers spending 8–9 hours/week and increasingly paying via IAPs, the long-held “Indians don’t pay” myth is over. Consumers pay for value.

💡 UPI as a major inflection point - Seamless payments have unlocked sustainable monetisation for interactive media platforms built for India’s mass market.

💡 AI as core product, not a layer - Lumikai’s AI investments, including Supernova (edtech) and AskMyGuru (astrotech), demonstrate how frontier companies in India are building AI-native products.

💡 Looking ahead to 2026 - Salone highlighted frontier tech, UGC platforms, and a new wave of “systems of play” shaping the Swipe Before Type generation.

🔗 Watch the full conversation here: The Offline Network