Focus on profitability key to drive investment in Indian films: angel investors

This was the consensus among a panel of investors speaking at FICCI-Frames 2015

Indian film-makers should marry their creative skills with delivering higher returns to investors, urged a panel of angel investors at the second day of the annual media and entertainment conference FICCI-Frames 2015. They outlined that this would aid boosting investments in the entertainment sector.  

Nandini Mansinghka, Founder, Idyabooster, said: “We keep seeing films looking for funding. Most of them find investments of Rs 50 lakhs to Rs 1 crore too small. Filmmakers should be open to smaller investments. Importantly, they should have fixed plans to monetise their movies. Not many producers/production houses are willing to explore new options for monetizing and only want to sell their movies to a studio. Returns are very important for venture capital funds and angel investors.”

The key things investors look at while investing in a movie is the competency of the makers as well as the content innovation. Additionally, investors believe, there should be one person in the team to take responsibility of selling the movie even in the worst scenarios.

Some investors highlighted the need to have higher peer investing in movies. Padmaja Ruparel, CEO, Indian Angels Network, said:” Peer investing can be important in boosting investment. Film makers can take domain experts on board and then seek institutional funding.”

Saurabh Srivastava, co-founder and past chairman NASSCOM, IVCA and TIE and co-founder, Indian Angel Network, highlighted how changing technology will revolutionise the media and entertainment industry.

“Technology changes will reduce the cost of producing and distributing content going forward. With increased consumption of films and media on the mobile and the internet, the current star system will be destroyed. Viewers will increasingly focus on the content irrespective of the stars in the movie”, he said.

On day one of the three-day conferenc, industry representatives emphasised on the need for improving profitability of Indian movies. When discussing the dismal year that the Indian film industry had in 2014, Viacom18 Motion Pictures COO, Ajit Andhare had pointed out that the biggest disadvantage in such a case will be that investors will be deterred from backing films. “An investor will be interested in knowing how and how much returns on investment he can make,” he said.