Profile of Virgin Comics

The Mint has a profile of Virgin Comics Llc., a company co-founded by former MTV executive Sharad Devarajan and Gotham Chopra (and backed by author Deepak Chopra, filmaker Shekhar Kapur and Virgin Group’s Richard Branson), which is aiming to take Indian culture overseas via the comics route.

ACK (Amar Chitra Katha) books are popular with the Indian diaspora, but Virgin’s model is different—the company wants to make its comics, with Indian characters and others, successful in the US, the biggest market for English language comics in the world.

...And Virgin Comics’ revenues from these top sellers has been more than $600 million (Rs2,460 crore) for the 12 months of data available on ICv2 (it arrives at this number based on sales of these comics by Diamond US, a company that has had an exclusive distribution agreement with Virgin since January). More than half of those revenues came from the Devi, Snakewoman and Ramayan 3392 AD series. Devarajan would not disclose the closely-held company’s global revenues.

Virgin Comics has also been quick to realize the multimedia benefits of being in the comics business. Sadhu is being made into a motion picture starring Nicholas Cage. Virgin has alliances with India’s Jump Games Pvt. Ltd to create mobile games; Studio 18 to make horror movies; MySpace for a comic book platform that allows readers to create comics in partnership with some of the world’s best-known comics writers such as Carey; UTV Motion Pictures Plc. to create superhero franchises; and Sony Online Entertainment to produce games for the personal computer.

Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of information and networking services to the private equity and venture capital ecosystem in India. View free samples of Venture Intelligence newsletters and reports.

Avendus tops League Table for Transaction Advisors to PE deals in H1'24

Citi and Ambit claim the No.2&3 slots Avendus topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Transaction Advisor to Private Equity Transactions in H1’2024 advising 12 deals worth $2.4 Billion. Citi stood second, having advised 1 deal worth $2 Billion. Ambit followed with 7 deals worth $797 million. Kotak Mahindra Capital ($735 million across 2 deals) and Ernst & Young ($657 million across 7 deals) completed the top five for H1’ 2024. The Venture Intelligence League Tables , the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on the value of PE and M&A transactions advised by Financial and Legal Advisory firms. Among the larger deals in the latest quarter, Citi, KPMG , Ernst & Young advised $2 Billion acquisition of the Indian business of American Tower Corporation by Brookfield . Avendus, Ernst & Young, JM Financial, Barclays and KPMG advised $ 554 million acquisition of Shriram Housing Finance by Warb...

Citi tops League Table for Transaction Advisors to M&A deals in H1'24

Ernst & Young and Avendus claim the No.2 & No.3 slots Citi , which advised the $2 Billion acquisition of the Indian business of American Tower Corporation by Brookfield, topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Transaction Advisors to M&A Deals during H1 2024. Ernst & Young stood second advising 8 deals worth $1.5 billion. Avendus followed with 7 deals worth $1.2 billion. KPMG ($1.1 billion across 5 deals) and JM Financial ($900 million across 4 deals) completed the top five. The Venture Intelligence League Tables , the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on the value of PE and M&A transactions advised by Financial and Legal Advisory firms. Among the other larger M&A deals in H1 2024 (other than the ATC-Brookfield deal) , Ernst & Young, KPMG and Deloitte advised $1.1 Billion acquisition in PNC Infratech 12 Road Projects by Highways Infrastructure Tr...

AZB tops League Table for Legal Advisors to PE deals in H1’24

Trilegal and Khaitan & Co. claim the No.2 & No.3 slots AZB & Partners (AZB) topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Legal Advisor to Private Equity Transactions in H1 2024 advising 41 deals worth $5.4 Billion. It was followed by Trilegal ($5.1 Billion across 54 deals) and Khaitan & Co. (4.8 Billion across 46 deals) in the second and third spot respectively. Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) ($2.9 Billion across 34 deals) and Talwar Thakore & Associates ($2.4 Billion across 9 deals) completed the top five. Among the larger Private Equity deals during H1’2024, Khaitan & Co., Talwar Thakore & Associates, S&R Associates ,and Trilegal a dvised the $2 Billion acquisition of the Indian business of American Tower Corporation by Brookfield which was the largest PE-VC investment in 2024 . AZB advised the $900 Million acquisition of Altimetrik by TPG Capital and the $840 Million acquisition of Healthium Medtech by KKR . Resolut Partners , Khaitan & ...

AZB & Partners tops League Table for Legal Advisors to M&A deals in H1’24

Khaitan & Co. and J Sagar Associates claim the No.2 & No.3 slots AZB & Partners topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Legal Advisor to M&A Transactions during H1 2024 advising 37 deals worth $14.8 Billion. It was followed by Khaitan & Co. ($12.8 Billion across 32 deals) and J Sagar Associates (JSA) ($9.8 Billion across 13 deals). Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) ($6.2 Billion across 38 deals) and Trilegal ($4.8 Billion across 20 deals) completed the top five. Among the largest M&A deals during H1 2024, AZB, JSA and Khaitan & Co. advised $8.5 Billion acquisition of Disney Hotstar by Reliance Jio . S&R Associates , Talwar Thakore & Associates (TTA), Khaitan & Co. and Trilegal advised the $2 Billion buyout deal of ATC India by Canadian infrastructure investor Brookfield Asset Management . CAM advised the $1.3 Billion in the acquisition of a further stake in Ambuja Cement by Adani Enterprises . Among fo...

VC Interview: Shailendra Singh of Sequoia Capital India

In a recent interview to Venture Intelligence, Shailendra Singh discussed some of the firm’s newer investments in the early stage segment including in the online payments space, the progress at a few existing portfolio companies and the active role the firm is playing in helping its portfolio companies scale and succeed in India and globally. Prior to joining the firm in 2006, Singh was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company in New York and before that, an entrepreneur in the digital media industry. Venture Intelligence: How does Sequoia go about identifying potential early stage investments in India? Is there anything different you are doing today than, say, a couple of years back? Shailendra Singh: There is a lot more focus on technology investing and early stage investing. In general, as you might remember a few years ago, we were doing primarily growth investing but in the past 18-odd months, we have had a very strong focus on early stage and that’s continuing. In terms...

The Venture Intelligence Blog

Search This Blog