{"id":8346,"date":"2017-07-14T09:08:52","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T09:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/?p=8346"},"modified":"2017-07-14T09:08:52","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T09:08:52","slug":"gayle-invests-in-indian-gaming-start-up-iona-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/2017\/07\/14\/gayle-invests-in-indian-gaming-start-up-iona-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Gayle invests in Indian gaming start-up IONA Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Swashbuckling West Indian opening batsman Chris Gayle has invested an undisclosed amount in IONA Entertainment to bring one-stop entertainment to Indian sports fans, which includes state-of-the-art virtual gaming.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to reporters here, Gayle said he is a family man and loved to be associated with IONA, which is a family-oriented firm with potential to grow into a big business.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He also said India is his top priority in terms of investment destinations and wanted to invest as many businesses as possible.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Iona, at present, has one 70,000 square-feet gaming venue at Virginia Mall here. It had raised an initial round of funding from Singapore-based Vestasia.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Replying to a query, CMD at Virginia Mall Company B Ramaswamy said IONA has chalked out a Rs 200-crore expansion plan in the first phase.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Rs 200 crore is just a phase one investment. We need toinvest more, and partners coming in like Chris Gayle and Vestasia further strengthens our brand in the quest to become a global player,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Asked what percentage of Rs 200 crore has Gayle invested in the venture, Ramaswamy said, &#8220;I have two answers for that. One is Chris Gayle cannot be valued. Two, the brand is young, for we had launched the brand just about a month ago.&#8221; Ramaswamy said the company is still in talks with Gayle and other stakeholders about business modalities.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Lot of paperwork, valuations among other things needs to be workedout. We will come back on it once all the modalities arefinished,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>IONA Founder Subramanian said the company has big plans and intend to set up gaming zones in different parts of the country and make its presence felt abroad.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;We are planning to expand pan-India and by the end of the year, we are looking at having five more centres in India and two abroad,&#8221; he said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Swashbuckling West Indian opening batsman Chris Gayle has invested an undisclosed amount in IONA Entertainment to bring one-stop entertainment to Indian sports fans, which includes state-of-the-art virtual gaming. &nbsp; Speaking to reporters here, Gayle said he is a family man and loved to be associated with IONA, which is a family-oriented firm with potential to grow into a big business. &nbsp; He also said India is his top priority in terms of investment destinations and wanted to invest as many businesses as possible. &nbsp; Iona, at present, has one 70,000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8346"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8348,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8346\/revisions\/8348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}