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Eros powers up as USD 150 million boost fuels its AI entertainment play
MUMBAI: In a plot twist worthy of its own cinematic universe, Eros Innovation has fired up its next growth chapter with a USD 150 million burst of capital and strategic acquisitions, a move that cements its standing as a $ 2-billion valued, zero-debt, AI-driven global entertainment powerhouse.
The expansion is anchored by a $ 50 million primary investment led by Plenitude Capital and advised by Greenback Capital at DIFC. Alongside it sits nearly USD 100 million in content and technology acquisitions, creating a formidable runway for Eros Innovation’s ambitions in AI compute infrastructure, immersive story formats, and large-scale creative technologies.
Eros Group Founder and Chairman Kishore Lulla framed the accelerated scale with trademark flourish, “With over $1 billion in assets, $150 million in new capital and acquisitions, $35 million in EBITDA last year, and a clear trajectory to exceed $100 million by December 2026, Eros Innovation is scaling with both profitability and discipline. We are building the sovereign creative infrastructure of the future… where content, capital, and computation converge to deliver intelligent and ethical entertainment to billions.”
At the centre of this creative superstructure stands Eros GenAI, the company’s proprietary multimodal AI foundation model developed with IIT Chennai. Trained on 1.5 trillion cinematic, cultural, musical and behavioural tokens, the model positions itself as India’s first sovereign cultural AI stack, powering everything from automated dubbing and generative music to AI-native characters for virtual, live and interactive experiences.
Strengthening the experiential side of its universe, Eros Innovation has acquired 100 per cent of Empirical Wax, a London immersive tech studio known for real-time AI music, avatar-driven performances and mixed-reality worlds. Adding further heft, the company has completed a $97 million IP acquisition, rounding up films, multilingual digital assets and high-value music titles to enrich its content engine.
Today, Eros Innovation operates one of the world’s most expansive entertainment-tech infrastructures, spanning 80 million-plus subscribers, 12,000-plus film titles, 100,000-plus AI-ready characters, and a global fan base that crosses 2 billion people. All these assets form the launchpad for the upcoming Eros Universe Super App, a creator-economy platform that promises to fuse AI tools, tokenised content and immersive storytelling into a single seamless global interface.
With capital secured, IP consolidated and AI at its core, Eros Innovation isn’t just scaling, it’s scripting a future where the world’s next blockbuster may well be written, scored and performed by intelligence it built itself
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Reserve Bank of India cancels Paytm Payments Bank licence
Central bank cites compliance failures; curbs tighten as wind-up looms
MUMBAI: India’s banking watchdog delivered its sharpest blow yet to Paytm Payments Bank, cancelling its licence and effectively ending its ability to operate as a bank under the law.
The Reserve Bank of India said the entity can no longer conduct banking business under the Banking Regulation Act, citing concerns that its affairs were not being run in the interest of depositors or the public and that it had failed to meet licence conditions.
The move escalates a crackdown that has been building for months. The bank had already been barred from onboarding new customers since March 11, 2022, and later faced restrictions on deposits, credit and wallet top-ups. In January 2024, the central bank ordered it to stop accepting fresh deposits, pointing to persistent non-compliance, including lapses in customer due diligence, use of funds and technology systems.
Operationally, the bank is now on a tight leash. It may process withdrawals of existing deposits and facilitate loan referrals through banking correspondents, but it cannot take fresh deposits.
The central bank said it would apply to the high court to wind up the bank.
Paytm sought to ringfence the fallout. In a regulatory filing, it said the licence cancellation applies to Paytm Payments Bank Limited, a separate entity, and should not be attributed to One 97 Communications. It added that there is no exposure or material business arrangement with the bank and that it operates independently, without Paytm’s board or management involvement.
“As informed earlier, Paytm (One 97 Communications Limited) and its services, which have been operating without interruption, will continue to operate uninterrupted. These include the Paytm app, Paytm UPI, Paytm Gold and all other services offered by its subsidiaries and associated companies,” the company said.
The distinction may reassure users of the app ecosystem, but the regulator’s verdict is unequivocal. After years of warnings, caps and curbs, the payments bank experiment at Paytm is being shut down—decisively, and with little room left to manoeuvre.
