Indian Startup Roped in by London Mayor’s Office to Set Up Gaming Hub

Microgravity, an Indian-based gaming company, has been selected by the London Mayor’s Office to establish an augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) gaming arena in the city.

According to Rahul Bhattacharya, Managing Director of Microgravity, the deal should be finalised within the next fortnight.

“A London-based fund has expressed interest in establishing a gaming centre like our offering in Gurugram, Haryana – in London. For this project, we are financing £1.5 million from a London-based real estate investment trust (REIT).”

“The London Mayor’s Office’s business and economy department approached us and appointed London & Partners to assist us in finding the suitable location and funding for the facility,” Bhattacharya continued.

London & Partners is a non-profit public-private partnership (PPP) firm founded by former London Mayor Boris Johnson in 2011. Its mission is to form promotional alliances that will help the city create jobs and expand economically.

Work on the facility will begin in January 2022, according to Bhattacharya, and it should be operating in London by July 2022.

Microgravity is a company that creates real AR/VR game arenas and has a location in Gurugram that showcases them. It is not the only one, though. Zero Latency VR, an Australian start-up based in Mumbai’s suburbs, runs an AR/VR gaming hub with the same name, which includes a VR shootout arena with up to eight players playing at the same time, among other games. Zero Latency is based in Mumbai and is run in collaboration with Indian entrepreneur Parineeta Rajgarhia.

To not lag, Smaaash, a decade-old Indian gaming centre, has shifted its focus to include some parts of AR/VR experiences in its locations across the country.

The AR/VR gaming industry is likely to increase in the future years, while consumers in India currently have a limited selection to choose from. Rajgarhia of Zero Latency estimated in an interview with Outlook Business that revenue from the global VR gaming business was $12 billion in 2019. She predicted that in the next five years, this figure may climb by 30%, with Asia-Pacific accounting for 40% of global VR gaming demand.