WAVES Bazaar drives Rs 1,300 crore in business deals as WaveX opens funding avenues

India's ambition to emerge as a global media and entertainment powerhouse is beginning to take a more structured shape, with the government's World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) positioning itself as a platform that goes beyond industry networking to facilitate business transactions, startup investments and international collaborations.

The inaugural edition of WAVES, organised in Mumbai from May 1 to 4, 2025, brought together participants from more than 100 countries, over 300 companies and 350 startups across the media and entertainment ecosystem. The four-day event, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Jio World Convention Centre, recorded an estimated footfall of more than 1 lakh delegates and participation from over 650 media and entertainment companies.

More significantly, the summit's first edition reported strategic memoranda of understanding worth Rs 8,000 crore, alongside new co-production agreements and business collaborations.

At the centre of this strategy were three initiatives: WAVES Bazaar, positioned as an international marketplace for media and entertainment content; WaveX, a pitching, funding and startup acceleration platform; and Creatosphere, which provided a showcase for emerging creative talent through the Create in India Challenge.

Together, these initiatives represent an attempt to address three critical requirements of India's creative economy: access to markets, access to capital and access to opportunities for talent.

WAVES Bazaar: Turning creative content into commercial opportunities

One of the most significant outcomes of the inaugural summit was WAVES Bazaar, described in the Ministry's annual report as the world's first media and entertainment marketplace.

Held from May 1 to 3, 2025, alongside the WAVES summit at Mumbai's Jio World Centre, the marketplace was designed to connect Indian content creators, production companies and rights holders with international buyers and industry stakeholders.

According to the Ministry's annual report, WAVES Bazaar facilitated business deals worth more than Rs 1,300 crore through over 3,000 business-to-business (B2B) meetings.

The scale of these engagements highlights the commercial opportunity in positioning India as a destination not only for content consumption but also for content production, licensing, distribution and international collaboration.

The marketplace sought to bring together different segments of the media and entertainment value chain, creating opportunities for companies to explore partnerships and business arrangements across markets.

The National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), which was involved in the initiative, also reported that 15 curated projects were selected from viewing-room submissions and presented during an open pitching session on May 2, 2025.

These projects comprised nine feature films, two documentaries, two short films and two web series. The pitching session was moderated by filmmaker Shona Urvashi, with certificates presented by casting director Mukesh Chhabra.

The curated selection reflected the effort to connect original Indian content with potential international buyers, collaborators and distributors.

For India's film and entertainment industry, such a marketplace could provide an additional route to monetise intellectual property, secure distribution partnerships and explore co-production arrangements beyond conventional film markets.

The initiative also signals an effort to make the business side of the creative economy more organised, by bringing buyers and sellers into a structured environment rather than leaving commercial discovery entirely to individual industry networks.

WaveX: Building a funding and incubation pipeline for media startups

While WAVES Bazaar focuses on commercial opportunities for established industry participants and content creators, WaveX is aimed at the next generation of media and entertainment businesses.

The startup pitching and funding platform enabled investment discussions exceeding Rs 100 crore among more than 120 startups during WAVES 2025.

The platform is intended to address a gap in India's media and entertainment ecosystem: the need for specialised startup support in sectors where technology, creativity and intellectual property increasingly intersect.

These include animation, visual effects, gaming, comics and extended reality (AVGC-XR), as well as other emerging media and digital-content businesses.

An important development in WaveX's evolution came on September 24, 2025, when it launched seven additional incubation centres across campuses of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), Kolkata.

These centres were established in addition to the existing facility at the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT), Mumbai.

The incubation network is designed to offer startups access to infrastructure, co-working facilities, mentorship, funding opportunities and global exposure.

The first batch of seven companies had already started working at IICT's incubator, marking the rollout of a dedicated accelerator-cum-incubator programme specifically for startups in the media and AVGC-XR sectors.

The model is significant because creative-technology startups often require a combination of technical infrastructure, industry access, intellectual property development and commercial mentorship.

Unlike conventional technology accelerators, the WaveX ecosystem is being developed around the specific requirements of the media and entertainment industry.

The seven new incubation centres also extend the initiative beyond Mumbai, leveraging existing educational institutions and film-training campuses to widen access to entrepreneurial support.

The objective is to create a pipeline through which early-stage ideas can move towards commercially viable products, services and intellectual property.

IICT emerges as a key pillar of the creative technology ecosystem

WaveX's expansion is closely linked to the establishment of the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) in Mumbai.

Set up by the Government of India in collaboration with the Government of Maharashtra, FICCI and CII, IICT is envisaged as a national centre of excellence for animation, visual effects, gaming, comics and extended reality.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting signed a memorandum of understanding with the Maharashtra government, Maharashtra Film, Stage & Cultural Development Corporation and IICT on April 11, 2025, for establishing the institute on the lines of premier institutions such as IITs and IIMs.

Its campus at the NFDC complex in Mumbai was inaugurated on July 18, 2025. Seventeen courses covering gaming, post-production, animation, comics and extended reality were launched at the institute.

IICT is expected to strengthen the talent and technology infrastructure required to support India's ambitions in the global AVGC-XR market.

Its connection with WaveX provides a pathway between education, startup incubation and industry opportunities.

The broader approach is to build an ecosystem in which students, creators, technology developers and entrepreneurs can access institutional support and potentially take their ideas to market.

From a summit to a year-round creator economy

WAVES is also seeking to expand its reach through the Create in India Challenge (CIC), a flagship initiative designed to identify and nurture creative talent.

Season I of the challenge, launched ahead of WAVES 2025, received more than one lakh registrations from 63 countries, according to the Ministry's highlights of activities.

The initiative featured 32 challenges across areas including animation, gaming, music, comics, artificial intelligence and augmented and virtual reality, with participation from leading industry associations.

The Ministry's detailed account of the programme also records participation across all States and Union Territories, over 750 finalists shortlisted for showcase at WAVES 2025 and more than 21.3 million digital impressions.

Creatosphere, the platform hosting the grand finale, brought together exhibitions, masterclasses, panel discussions and networking sessions.

It was designed to give emerging creators opportunities to interact with industry participants and global platforms, including Netflix, Amazon, Meta and YouTube.

The initiative also sought to create pathways for intellectual property monetisation, co-production and investment.

The importance of this approach lies in connecting talent discovery with commercial opportunities. Creative competitions can identify promising ideas, but access to investors, production companies, distributors and global platforms is essential if those ideas are to become sustainable businesses.

The Ministry's report also highlights continued engagement through platforms such as WAVES Bazaar, IndiaJoy, the India Game Developer Conference and the International Film Festival of India.

The larger economic ambition

The financial figures emerging from WAVES 2025 provide an indication of the scale of the government's ambition for India's media and entertainment sector.

The reported Rs 1,300 crore-plus in business deals facilitated through WAVES Bazaar, more than Rs 100 crore in investment discussions through WaveX and strategic MoUs worth Rs 8,000 crore indicate the breadth of commercial engagement generated by the summit.

However, these figures represent different categories of economic activity and should not be treated as realised revenues or completed investments. Business deals, investment discussions and MoU commitments have different levels of commercial certainty and execution timelines.

The distinction will be important as the ecosystem matures and its longer-term economic impact is assessed.

The next phase of WAVES will depend on whether the partnerships and discussions generated through the platform translate into executed contracts, funded startups, intellectual property deals, international distribution agreements and sustained employment.

For the media and entertainment industry, the opportunity is substantial. India's creative economy spans film, television, animation, gaming, music, digital content, live entertainment and emerging immersive technologies.

Yet, scaling these sectors globally requires more than creative talent. It requires capital, technology, distribution networks, intellectual property protection, specialised skills and access to international markets.

WAVES is attempting to bring several of these components under one umbrella.

Can WAVES become a global marketplace for India's creative industries?

The first edition has established a sizeable starting point in terms of participation, commercial discussions and institutional partnerships. Its international orientation was reinforced through the Global Media Dialogue, which saw participation from several countries and culminated in the WAVES Declaration.

The declaration called for global digital inclusion, responsible artificial intelligence and cooperation in cultural preservation, under the theme 'Connecting Creators, Connecting Countries'.

The government has also begun taking the WAVES Bazaar proposition to international markets. During the September 2025 visit of former Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting L. Murugan to South Korea, WAVES Bazaar and Bharat Parv showcased India's creative economy at the Busan International Film Festival and Asia Contents & Film Market.

This international outreach could help Indian companies develop relationships with overseas production houses, content buyers and technology partners.

Ultimately, WAVES' success will not be determined only by the scale of its annual gathering. It will depend on the strength of the business ecosystem it creates between editions.

WAVES Bazaar will need to demonstrate repeat business and successful content transactions. WaveX will need to show that investment discussions translate into funded companies and scalable startups. The incubation network will need to produce market-ready businesses, while Creatosphere and the Create in India Challenge will need to help creators turn ideas into commercially successful intellectual property.

The Rs 1,300 crore-plus business activity reported by WAVES Bazaar and the more than Rs 100 crore in startup investment discussions through WaveX provide an initial indication of market interest.

The larger test is whether these platforms can create a sustained pipeline of deals, businesses and intellectual property that strengthens India's position in the global media and entertainment economy.