iWorld
Stride Ventures leads Rs 17 crore debt round in Pocket Aces
KOLKATA: Stride Ventures has led a Rs 17 crore debt round in digital entertainment company Pocket Aces. Stride will be a strategic partner in Pocket Aces’ growth journey with their customised offerings and deep relationships across banks and corporates.
This partnership with Pocket Aces is the twelfth investment from Stride Ventures’ maiden fund, marking its foray in the digital media and entertainment space as gaming and OTT has had a breakthrough year with industry revenues surging and subscriptions rising through the lockdown.
Stride Ventures founder and managing partner Ishpreet Gandhi said, “Pocket Aces has truly pioneered digital content in India through its data driven approach to content creation. More importantly, the company creates highly relatable content, making it appealing especially for the younger demographic. At Stride, we strive to partner with indigenous companies which have the ability to scale up rapidly by leveraging technology and we see Pocket Aces as a great addition to our portfolio.”
Pocket Aces co-founder Aditi Shrivastava added, “2020 was an unprecedented challenge for humanity and we were privileged to entertain the Indian audience during this difficult time. The lockdown accelerated adoption of digital media as the primary source of consumer entertainment , and so we innovated rapidly to ensure that we could continue to thrive and increase content output in this new normal. As a result, we saw growth in all our major business lines this year. As we go into 2021, we are more excited than ever about the size of the entertainment opportunity in India and are happy to partner with Stride Ventures on our growth journey. This debt instrument is one of the first of its kind for the sector and we think it underlines Pocket Aces’ leadership of the sector as well as the innovation focus of Stride Ventures.”
Pocket Aces will utilise the capital raised to scale the current content output and invest further in new content formats and distribution channels. In 2020, Pocket Aces released multiple shows across its channels that kept audiences gripped with stories of love, life, and the new normal. The company has worked with over 100 brands across sectors including Tinder, Hindustan Unilever, PureMe, Bacardi, Unacademy, and Mondelez, among others.
On the other hand, its game streaming and e-sports platform Loco, has hosted some of the biggest mobile gaming tournaments India has ever seen. Loco also entered into strategic partnerships with Red Bull, Fnatic, NBA 2K League, and other leading brands. The year also saw Pocket Aces launch Clout, its talent management division, which exclusively represents over 60 of the digital industry’s finest and most popular faces.
iWorld
Why Peaky Blinders is one of television’s biggest hits that still deserves more attention
Six seasons, multiple awards and the release of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man bring the Shelby saga back into the spotlight
In the crowded universe of streaming content, only a handful of shows manage to leave a lasting cultural footprint. Peaky Blinders is overwhelmingly considered one of the biggest global hits of the past decade. Yet many viewers still haven’t fully explored the dark, gripping world of the Shelby family.
Originally produced for the UK’s BBC and later finding a massive global audience through Netflix, the series quietly grew from a British period drama into a worldwide streaming phenomenon.
Created by Steven Knight, the show follows the rise of the Shelby crime family in post-First World War Birmingham. What begins as a gritty street-gang story gradually expands into a sweeping narrative about ambition, politics, power and survival.
At the centre of the saga is Thomas Shelby, portrayed with extraordinary depth by Cillian Murphy. The casting of Murphy is widely regarded as perfect for the role. With piercing eyes, restrained dialogue and an almost hypnotic screen presence, he transforms Shelby into one of the most unforgettable characters in modern screen storytelling.
Murphy’s brilliance lies in his restraint. He rarely shouts or performs theatrically. Instead, a quiet stare, a calculated pause or a subtle shift in expression conveys the emotional storms within the character. Beneath the ruthless gang leader is a war veteran carrying trauma, guilt and loneliness. Murphy captures this complexity with remarkable precision, making Thomas Shelby both terrifying and deeply human.
Beyond its central performance, Peaky Blinders stands out for its unfiltered portrayal of reality. The show does not romanticise crime. Instead, it exposes the harsh social conditions of early 20th-century Britain, from poverty and class struggle to political extremism and the psychological scars left by war.
The series also presents powerful female characters who hold their own within the Shelby empire. Polly Gray, played by Helen McCrory, is the strategic backbone of the family and one of the most formidable figures in the story. Women in the series shape decisions, influence power structures and challenge the rigid social norms of the time.
Across six seasons, the narrative grows dramatically in scale. What begins in the smoky streets of Birmingham evolves into a story involving political conspiracies, fascism and international criminal networks.
The series has also earned significant critical acclaim. It won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Series in 2018 and multiple National Television Awards for Best Drama, cementing its reputation as one of Britain’s most celebrated modern shows.
Another defining feature of the series is its iconic music. The show’s opening theme, Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, became instantly recognisable and widely associated with the Shelby universe. Combined with a powerful soundtrack featuring artists such as Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead, the music helped shape the show’s dark, stylish identity and became hugely popular among fans.
And the Shelby story is not over yet.
In fact, its legacy is unfolding right now. The long-awaited feature-length continuation, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, was released on March 6, 2026, bringing the Shelby universe from streaming screens to cinemas and giving fans a new chapter in the saga.
For viewers who have not yet stepped into this world, the timing could not be better.
Six gripping seasons are ready to binge on Netflix. A new film has just arrived in theatres. And at the heart of it all stands one of the most magnetic performances in modern drama by Cillian Murphy.
So if Peaky Blinders has been sitting on your watchlist for years, this weekend is your moment.
So, by order of the Peaky fookin’ Blinders, consider this your cue to finally step into the ruthless world of Thomas Shelby. Pour yourself a drink, clear your schedule and press the play button. Because when the Peaky Blinders give an order, you listen.
