Can film IP become India’s next alternative asset class? CineNow launches ₹1,350-crore entertainment investment platform

India’s entertainment industry is producing more content than ever before and reaching audiences across theatres, streaming platforms, and global markets. But while distribution and consumption have evolved rapidly, the financial systems supporting the sector have remained largely traditional—project-led, relationship-driven, and dependent on theatrical outcomes.

That gap has created an opportunity to rethink entertainment financing. As intellectual property emerges as a long-term value driver, a new class of platforms is attempting to bring institutional capital, governance, and structured investing into the business of content.

Rohit Dalmia, chairman & managing director, CineNow, believes that model has reached an inflection point.

CineNow, a British Virgin Islands-registered company and entertainment financing platform, has launched a ₹1,350-crore structured investment platform designed to institutionalise capital in Indian entertainment and reposition film intellectual property (IP) as a scalable financial asset.

“The industry has evolved dramatically in terms of content creation and distribution, but financing has remained largely unchanged,” Dalmia tells Fortune India. “We believe the next chapter of India’s entertainment growth story will be driven as much by ownership and monetisation of IP as by content creation itself.”

Unlike production houses or traditional financiers, CineNow does not intend to make films. Instead, it wants to become the financial infrastructure layer supporting the industry—bringing governance, portfolio allocation, and structured investing into entertainment.

Why should film financing move beyond the box office?

For decades, theatrical collections dominated the conversation around success. But the economics of content have changed.

Today, films generate value through OTT licensing, satellite syndication, music rights, international distribution, remakes, sequels, and digital monetisation. Dalmia argues that this shift demands a fundamentally different financing framework.

“The industry has historically treated films as individual creative bets,” he says. “We are approaching them as rights-backed assets that can be acquired, structured, managed, and monetised over time.”

That philosophy sits at the core of CineNow’s model.

Rather than backing a handful of projects, the platform plans to build exposure across more than 30 films and content properties spanning languages, genres, and formats. The objective is to create diversified revenue pools and reduce dependence on any single title.

“Our investment strategy is built around disciplined capital deployment, rights-backed investing, and portfolio diversification,” Dalmia says. “Different content assets carry different monetisation timelines. Combining them thoughtfully creates resilience.”

Can governance transform an industry built on relationships?

Institutional capital has historically remained cautious around entertainment because of opacity and unpredictability.

CineNow’s pitch to investors is that governance—not glamour—will drive confidence.

According to Dalmia, every investment undergoes legal diligence, chain-of-title verification, financial assessment, and milestone-linked deployment. Independent administration and transparent reporting frameworks are built into the structure.

“Investors today are looking for diversification, governance, and visibility—not speculative exposure,” he says. “What we are creating is a fundamentally different proposition where investors gain access to a diversified portfolio of entertainment assets with professional oversight.”

The underwriting framework also moves beyond opening-weekend numbers.

Instead, CineNow evaluates opportunities through intellectual property value, rights ownership, revenue visibility, production discipline, monetisation potential, and portfolio fit.

“We are not trying to predict one blockbuster,” Dalmia says. “We are building a platform designed to generate sustainable value across multiple assets and revenue streams.”

Can tokenisation reshape entertainment investing?

Another layer of CineNow’s strategy is tokenisation—an emerging structure that seeks to improve liquidity and investor access.

Dalmia positions it less as disruption and more as an efficiency tool.

“Technology is not the investment thesis,” he says. “Real value comes from owning quality intellectual property and managing it with discipline. Tokenisation can make participation more efficient, flexible, and scalable.”

The platform says it has drawn inspiration from Hollywood slate financing models, music-rights investment platforms, and institutional content ownership structures globally—while adapting those frameworks to India’s content economy. Its long-term ambition stretches beyond individual films.

Expansion opportunities could include regional content slates, structured credit, content libraries, and broader IP-backed investment vehicles.

“India already has a world-class content industry,” Dalmia says. “The next step is creating world-class financial infrastructure around it.”

If that thesis succeeds, cinema may no longer be viewed purely as entertainment—but as one of India’s most compelling alternative asset classes.