The money behind the money: Inside the RCB fundraise
Three weeks after Diageo sold Royal Challengers Bengaluru for $1.78 billion, the consortium that bought it is still raising the funds. The State of Play reveals how, and who is being asked to write the cheques.
On March 24, United Spirits Limited slipped a brief filing onto the Bombay Stock Exchange website. Buried in the legalese was a jolt: Diageo was selling Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), reigning champions of both the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the Women’s Premier League (WPL), its most valuable franchise and by some distance its most followed, to a four‑member consortium for $1.78 billion (Rs 16,600 crore).
The announcement did what such notices are designed to do: it named the buyers, quoted the principals and satisfied the basic demands of disclosure. It did not say how that $1.78 billion would be put together, who would ultimately be responsible for it, or how risk and reward would be shared.
Since then, that work has been unfolding out of sight. Consortium members have been in near‑constant calls with investors across two continents and multiple time zones. Lawyers, bent over drafts and mark‑ups, have been stitching the paperwork together.
On one of those evenings, Satyan Gajwani, vice‑chairman of the incoming ownership group, was in Bengaluru, hosting what one attendee described as an invite‑only catch‑up with friends. These were friends of a particular kind. Startup operators, unicorn founders and technology entrepreneurs who, between them, have built some of India’s most consequential companies drifted into a downtown cocktail bar for the sort of unhurried, low‑key conversation that often, a few weeks later, hardens into commitments measured in millions.
Behind the clean, almost antiseptic public statement, the consortium has been raising external capital through separate fund vehicles, each aimed at a different pool of investors and running in parallel before its date with Diageo next week.
