Rohit Sharma Joins LightFury Games as Investor Ahead of eCricket’s September Beta
The announcement comes ahead of eCricket's phased closed beta, which is scheduled to begin in September 2026.
Former India captain Rohit Sharma has joined Bengaluru-based gaming studio LightFury Games as an investor and will feature as an officially licensed player in its upcoming mobile cricket game, eCricket. LightFury has not disclosed the size or terms of Sharma’s investment.
Rohit Sharma becomes the eighth marquee cricketer to invest in LightFury, joining MS Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Tilak Varma and Sai Sudharsan, who invested in the company as part of its earlier funding round.
The announcement comes ahead of eCricket’s phased closed beta, which is scheduled to begin in September 2026. According to LightFury, more than 3 lakh users have already signed up for the game. The company also released its second official teaser on August 21, which crossed 1 million views over the weekend.
The teaser gives a look at the game’s Ultimate Squad mode, which will allow players to build teams using a roster of more than 700 officially licensed cricketers from around the world. Former Indian cricketer and television commentator Navjot Singh Sidhu will feature as one of the game’s official commentators, with LightFury planning to add more commentary voices.
eCricket is being developed as an AAA-focused, mobile-first cricket title powered by Unreal Engine 5. The game is expected to feature competitive gameplay, cricket-focused physics, real-time multiplayer and social features, with the company targeting players in India as well as international markets. LightFury has previously described the game as being built for a global audience.
LightFury’s player licensing has expanded considerably during development. The company had earlier announced a global player roster licence covering more than 600 professional cricketers, including players such as Chris Gayle, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Kane Williamson, Pat Cummins, Jos Buttler, Travis Head and Andre Russell. The current roster has since been described by the company as exceeding 700 licensed players.
Founded in 2024 by Karan Shroff, Anurag Banerjee and Tina Balachandran, LightFury Games describes itself as an AAA-focused game-tech studio. Its leadership and development team have experience across more than 40 AAA titles.
In April 2026, LightFury raised $11 million in a pre-Series A round led by Blume Ventures, V3 Ventures, MIXI and Times Internet, with participation from Dhoni, Bumrah, Pandya, Iyer, Jadeja, Varma and Sudharsan. The company said the capital would be used to complete eCricket’s development and strengthen its live-operations infrastructure and content pipeline for post-launch updates.
The company had previously raised $8.5 million in seed funding in 2024, taking its disclosed funding to around $19.5 million before Sharma’s investment.