Rario is a digital collectibles company based in India that runs a cricket NFT platform for cricket fans.

This Startup Deep Dive explains what Rario does, how it makes money, who backs it, how it compares with rivals and what could go wrong, using publicly available information. It is educational and not investment advice. Last updated: October 2026.

Rario in Brief

• What it is: Rario is an Indian Cricket NFT collectibles company based in Singapore.
• Who it serves: consumers, merchants, banks, lenders and enterprises.
• Rario ran a platform where fans collected and traded officially licensed cricket moments as NFT cards on the Polygon network.
• It held partnerships with leagues including the Caribbean Premier League, Lanka Premier League, Abu Dhabi T10 and Legends League Cricket, and over 900 cricketers.
• It reported selling over 50,000 NFTs to fans in 20 countries by May 2022; top markets were the USA, UK, Australia and India.
• Funding: At least $120 million (reported).

Rario Quick Facts

Figures marked “reported” come from published reports and may differ between sources; “Not disclosed” means no reliable public figure was found.

What Is Rario?

Rario operates in the Cricket NFT collectibles space in India. Understanding a company like this starts with three questions: who is the customer, what painful problem is being solved, and why the solution is better than the alternatives. The sections below apply that lens to Rario.

• Rario ran a platform where fans collected and traded officially licensed cricket moments as NFT cards on the Polygon network.
• It held partnerships with leagues including the Caribbean Premier League, Lanka Premier League, Abu Dhabi T10 and Legends League Cricket, and over 900 cricketers.
• It reported selling over 50,000 NFTs to fans in 20 countries by May 2022; top markets were the USA, UK, Australia and India.
• In India it offered fiat-only products to Dream Sports users.

The Origin Story of Rario

Every company starts from a noticed gap and a team willing to commit to closing it. Strong origin stories are specific: a clear problem, a founding team with relevant skills, and an early product that real customers could test. Founder-market fit, meaning the team’s lived experience or technical depth in the domain, tends to predict how fast a young company learns.

• Founders: Ankit Wadhwa, Sunny Bhanot.
• Founded in 2021 in Singapore by Ankit Wadhwa and Sunny Bhanot, both IIT Delhi alumni.
• Wadhwa is an IIT Delhi silver medallist with a Wharton MBA, over 15 years in e-commerce and technology, and a prior McKinsey stint.
• It launched in August 2021 as the first project of Polygon Studios.

Key Milestones and Challenges

No startup grows in a straight line. Early years usually involve slow adoption, product rewrites, hiring mistakes and funding gaps. In the Cricket NFT collectibles sector the common turning points are a first paying customer, a regulatory approval, a successful product demonstration or a funding round that lets the team invest ahead of demand. How a team responds to setbacks says more about resilience than any single headline.

• August 2021: Debuted on Polygon with officially licensed cricket NFTs.
• April 2022: Announced $120 million Series A led by Dream Capital, the largest investment in the cricket NFT space.
• August-September 2023: Reports that founders Wadhwa and Bhanot were pushed out by investors including Dream11; CFO Priyesh Karia became interim CEO.
• January 2024: Announced shutdown of its current product from January 29 and a new gaming platform in March, citing Web3 regulation, NFT crash and management failures.
• Days later: Reversed course and said it would continue its current rewards programme and marketplace.

Rario Funding and Investors

Funding history shows how much outside confidence a company has attracted and how long it can operate before needing more capital. Figures below are reported and may differ between sources; valuation figures are estimates unless the company has confirmed them.

• Series A, April 2022: $120M led by Dream Capital, the venture arm of Dream Sports, with Alpha Wave Global, and follow-on from Animoca Brands, Presight Capital and Kingsway Capital (reported).

How Does Rario Make Money? (Business Model)

A business model describes who pays, how often and how much it costs to serve them. Strong models show repeat usage, improving margins with scale and acquisition channels that do not depend only on paid spend. Weak models show one-off sales, rising costs and growth that stops when spending stops. For companies selling to consumers, merchants, banks, lenders and enterprises, sales cycles and contract size matter as much as headline growth.

• Sold NFT card packs and ran a secondary marketplace for trading, earning from primary sales and marketplace fees.
• Licensing deals with leagues and cricketers were costly, with partners reportedly not always paid on time.
• Rewards and gaming mechanics were layered over the cards; Rario co-developed the cricket game D3 with Dream Sports.

The Numbers: Rario Financials

Financial figures show whether growth is turning into a self-sustaining business. Small and private companies often disclose little, so any number below is included only if it was found in public reporting.

• Audited revenue, profit and loss figures for Rario were not available in the public sources reviewed.
• Readers can check the company’s filings with the Registrar of Companies for the latest financial statements.

Market Opportunity for Rario

Market size is easy to exaggerate, so a useful approach separates the total market from the portion a company can realistically reach with its current product and distribution. The main forces behind demand in this sector are the scale of UPI, rising digital lending, growing participation in investing and insurance, and the digitisation of small merchants. Each of these widens the opportunity, but capital efficiency and execution decide who captures it.

• Cricket fan engagement and sports NFTs boomed in 2021-2022 and then crashed.
• Indian rules, including a 30% tax on virtual digital asset income from 2022, hurt the category.

Technology and Product at Rario

Technology is rarely the whole moat, but it drives speed, cost and customer experience. A practical way to assess it is to separate the capability the company controls from the commodity infrastructure it rents. In this sector the important factors are uptime, security, fraud controls, integrations with banks and the speed of onboarding customers.

• Built on the Polygon blockchain with video, image and GIF moment cards.

Team and Culture at Rario

Teams are the most important and least measurable asset of a young company. Look at how complementary the founders’ skills are, how deep the second layer of leadership is, and how the company hires and retains specialists. Culture shows up in small repeated behaviours: how quickly bad news travels upward and whether commitments to customers are kept.

• Founders Ankit Wadhwa (CEO) and Sunny Bhanot (CTO) left in 2023.
• Investor-appointed leadership took over, with CFO Priyesh Karia as interim CEO (reported).

Rario Competitors: Competitive Landscape

A fair competitive analysis names direct rivals, adjacent players who could move into the space, and the customer’s default alternative. Durable advantages include proprietary data or technology, licences and approvals, brand trust, switching costs and cost leadership.

Risks and Challenges for Rario

• Retail buyers of NFTs faced reported losses of about Rs 30-40 crore after the shutdown announcement.
• Costly partnerships with cricket boards, a 30% tax on VDA income and a money laundering complaint by the Consumer Online Foundation.
• Founder exit and partner-payment disputes.
• Regulatory risk: rules from the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI or NPCI can change economics or business scope quickly.
• Concentration risk: dependence on a few partners, banks or payment rails can create single points of failure.

Risk is not a reason to avoid a company; it is a reason to price it correctly and to monitor the right indicators over time. Regulation in this sector is shaped by the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and NPCI.

Rario Growth Outlook: What to Watch

• The current product was said to continue after the reversal, but what happened after early 2024 was not found.
• Key indicators: transaction value, take rate, active users, credit quality and cost of acquiring each customer.
• Funding position: Whether Rario can reach its next milestone before needing new capital.
• Regulation: Changes from the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and NPCI.

Industry Context: Where Rario Fits

India's financial technology sector has been shaped by public digital infrastructure, especially UPI, along with Aadhaar-based identity, the account aggregator framework and regulation from the RBI, SEBI and IRDAI. These rails let startups reach customers and merchants at very low cost, but also expose them to fast-changing rules on licensing, data and lending conduct.

As payments become a low-margin commodity, fintech companies increasingly compete on distribution, merchant services, credit, wealth and insurance products. Sustainable profit usually depends on compliance strength, cost control and the quality of customer relationships rather than transaction volume alone.

For readers new to this field, a useful habit is to separate announcements from evidence. A plan, a partnership or a funding headline describes intent, while a delivered product, a paying customer or an audited financial statement describes results. Comparing the two over time shows how reliably a company turns promises into outcomes.

Bull Case and Bear Case for Rario

An investment thesis is a short, testable statement of why a company could become far more valuable, together with what evidence would prove it wrong. The points below are general to this sector and are not forecasts for Rario.

Bull case

• Digital payments and credit continue to grow, widening the market.
• Strong compliance and distribution create durable advantages.
• Cross-selling to existing customers can lift revenue per user.

Bear case

• Regulatory shifts can change economics overnight.
• Free or low-fee products make profit hard to reach.
• Fraud, outages and partner dependence can hurt trust.

Lessons Founders and Investors Can Take from Rario

Studying a company in the Cricket NFT collectibles space offers lessons that go beyond any single firm. The points below are general lessons for the sector and are not claims about Rario.

• Compliance is a growth enabler in financial services, not just a cost, because licences decide what a company is allowed to sell.
• Distribution and customer trust often matter more than the underlying payment or lending technology.
• Products that earn from services and credit tend to be steadier than ones that depend on free transactions.
• Dependence on a single bank partner or rail creates risk that should be managed early.
• Fraud prevention and uptime are core product features, not back-office tasks.

How to Evaluate Rario as a Startup

• Customer clarity: Can Rario name its customer and the problem it solves in one sentence?
• Evidence of demand: Look for repeat customers, signed contracts or measurable usage rather than announcements alone.
• Economics: Check whether margins improve as volume grows.
• Execution: Compare announced timelines with what has actually been delivered.
• Funding runway: Estimate how long current capital lasts at the present spending rate.
• Regulatory standing: Confirm required approvals are in place.
• Customer concentration: Check whether a few customers account for most of the revenue.
• Management depth: Look for experienced leaders beyond the founders and a stable core team.

The Takeaway

Rario is part of India’s growing Cricket NFT collectibles ecosystem. The useful lesson from studying it is the discipline of asking structured questions about customers, economics, advantage and resilience. Companies that answer them well, repeatedly and under pressure are the ones that endure. Readers should treat any single report, ranking or funding headline as one input among many, and should re-check key facts against recent company announcements. Because public information on young companies is often limited, patience in verifying claims is part of good analysis. Public sources can also describe the same company in different ways, so it is worth checking dates, definitions and whether a figure refers to revenue, total income or transaction value, and whether it covers one entity or a wider group, before drawing conclusions. Small differences in rounding, currency conversion or reporting periods can also change how a figure reads. Comparing the same figure across several recent reports helps show whether it is stable or has changed over time. This article is educational and is not investment advice.

• Clear customers and repeat demand matter more than announcements.
• Regulation and capital needs shape how fast a startup in this sector can grow.
• Track a few leading indicators over time rather than one headline metric.

Rario FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

What is Rario?

Rario is a digital collectibles company based in India that runs a cricket NFT platform for cricket fans. It is profiled in the Startup Deep Dive series, which explains business model, funding, competitors and risks.

Who founded Rario?

Rario was founded by Ankit Wadhwa, Sunny Bhanot, and the company reports a founding year of 2021.

How much funding has Rario raised?

At least $120 million (reported). Funding figures are reported and may differ between sources, so readers should check the latest company announcements.

How does Rario make money?

Rario earns revenue from its Cricket NFT collectibles products and services sold to consumers, merchants, banks, lenders and enterprises. The exact revenue mix is described in the business model section and is not fully disclosed publicly.

Who are the competitors of Rario?

Reported rivals include FanCraze. See the competitor comparison above for how they differ.

What are the main risks for Rario?

Main risks include rules from the rbi, sebi, irdai or npci can change economics or business scope quickly, funding and capital needs, competition and regulation by the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and NPCI. This is educational content, not investment advice.

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Source

Source: Publicly available data, published reports, industry research, and other credible sources.