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With a total equity free grant pool of USD 100,000, LVL Zero will fast-track product execution, provide targeted mentorship, and enable investor and publisher readiness within 100 days
The incubator aims to empower India’s gaming leap by supporting 100+ high-performing startups over the next five years
National, November 03, 2025: MIXI Global Investments, Nazara Technologies & ChimeraVC have officially joined forces to launch LVL Zero, a gaming incubator designed to help India’s gaming startups accelerate product execution and achieve investor and publisher readiness within 100 days. The initiative is supported by Google Play, which joins as the Knowledge Partner, offering technical mentorship, platform guidance and developer best practices.
As per the India Gaming Report 2025, India is home to 16.63 crore gamers today, with the number expected to reach 24.68 crore by 2027. As the nation’s gaming audience continues to expand, many new startups across diverse portfolios have emerged, yet few have scaled to global publishing, live operations, or sustainable business models. With global investors and publishers increasingly viewing India as a hub for creative talent and innovation, LVL Zero brings together some of the biggest names in the industry to bridge this gap. Offering equity-free grants and open to all game developers in the ecosystem, the incubator will provide mentorship, access to tools, and support to help Indian startups build sustainable ventures and compete on a global stage.
What LVL Zero Offers
● LVL Zero is built to fast-track startups from concept to investor and publisher readiness in 100 days through structured, measurable goals.
● Each cohort startup is matched with mentors who align with their current challenge whether it’s game design, development, analytics, or live-ops.
● A USD 10,000 equity-free grant for 10 startups each, along with access to global and Indian mentors, tools, platforms, and growth infrastructure provided by partners.
● LVL Zero connects developers with publishers, investors, and ecosystem partners to open pathways to distribution and funding.
● The programme focuses equally on product quality, data-led decision-making, business scalability, and product narratives, preparing startups to operate at global standards.
How LVL Zero Will Work
The LVL Zero framework is designed to compress years of learning and growth into a focused 100-day execution cycle. It is an outcome-driven sprint with defined phases and checkpoints.
Three-phase structure: Each team starts by pinpointing its biggest challenges and goals, builds through guided mentorship, testing and feedback cycles, and finishes ready for publisher reviews, investor outreach, and scale-up opportunities.
Hands-on mentorship: Teams work closely with domain specialists from across the globe across game design, production, user acquisition, monetisation, and business strategy and more.
Sprints and reviews: Regular product reviews and data checkpoints ensure measurable progress toward publishing and funding readiness.
Demo Day: The cycle concludes with a Demo Day, where startups pitch to a curated panel of publishers, investors, and strategic partners for potential capital, distribution and growth opportunities.
Ecosystem support: After Demo Day, teams remain connected to the LVL Zero network for ongoing mentorship, partnership and fund raising introductions.
The partners & hosts of LVL Zero
As a firm specialising in games, tools and infrastructure, ChimeraVC brings its early-stage, product-first investment approach to LVL Zero. The firm focuses on gaming, tools and infrastructure startups, backing founders early, helping them ship fast and scale globally.
“With Chimera, we’ve always worked with founders at Level 1 – the seed stage where conviction meets capital. LVL Zero allows us to start even earlier, at the stage where belief forms before traction and ideas are still taking shape. Most founders meet investors once they have momentum; LVL Zero lets them meet conviction first. It completes the loop for us, helping founders start earlier, think globally, and build more sustainably.” said Krish Anurag, Managing Partner at Chimera VC.
Nazara Technologies, India’s leading diversified gaming company and only publicly listed gaming company, which has its own publishing division known as Nazara Publishing, is a game publishing division of Nazara Technologies. It adds its publishing expertise, market experience, and global reach to the initiative. With a diversified portfolio across mobile gaming, esports, and sports media, Nazara has been instrumental in shaping India’s gaming landscape.
Nitish Mittersain, Joint MD & CEO, Nazara Technologies, explained, “At Nazara, we have always believed that India’s gaming story will be written by its startups. With LVL Zero, we are helping turn ambition into execution. This collaboration allows us to bring publishing experience, analytics insights, and go-to-market knowledge directly to developers who are ready to take the next leap. The future of gaming in India will depend on how well we empower startups to build and own their success stories.”
MIXI Global Investments (MGI) is the corporate venture capital arm of MIXI, Inc., based in Tokyo and known for its popular mobile game IPs and community-focused live operations. It brings global expertise and networks to help Indian startups engage with international markets and partners.
“We’ve been impressed by the energy and creativity of India’s game developer community. Through LVL Zero, we aim not only to invest but also to contribute to the country’s broader ecosystem—supporting emerging talent to grow and building a lasting bridge between Japan and India’s gaming industries,” said Tomoharu Urabe, Managing Director of Investments at MIXI Global Investments, Inc.
As Knowledge Partner, Google Play will provide participating teams with developer resources, technical mentorship and insights on discovery, retention and monetisation. The platform’s deep understanding of developer growth and user engagement will help startups maximise their reach and success.
The launch of LVL Zero comes at a time when India’s gaming ecosystem is growing rapidly, supported by mass access with cheap smartphones & high-speed data and the mainstream acceptance of gaming as a viable career option. The incubator aims to support more than 100 high-performing startups over the next five years, nurturing a new generation of Indian gaming startups ready for global markets.
By focusing on execution, mentorship and access to the gaming industry, LVL Zero bridges a critical gap in the ecosystem, helping startups move from early-stage prototypes to globally competitive products. As more Indian teams build with global benchmarks, the impact will strengthen the entire industry: better talent retention, greater investor confidence and increased publisher trust in Indian game IP.
