An online skill based gaming company based in Delhi, 9stacks has closed a Series A round of funding successfully, which was led by WaterBridge Ventures by raising $3.84 million (i.e. around Rs. 28 Cr). In this round, Astarc Ventures and other investors also took part.
9stacks has planned to use funds for the expansion of its team and to further build its tech platform. It will be used to level up data analysis, user acquisition, market and product expansion and machine learning.
In 2017, 9stacks was founded by Pratik Kumar, Sudhir Kamath, Rishab Mathur, and Abhinav Nigam. It is the skill-based real-money gaming platform which is based on marketing/branding in real money space of online gaming and technology development in India.
Sudhir Kamath, 9stacks CEO added, “With Waterbridge Ventures to become the leading investor in fundraising in Serie A, we are pleased to announce 9stacks to become the first online poker company in India to reach this milestone in fundraising. We are looking forward to make 9stacks the No.1 poker platform in India, where new players can discover, play and learn poker anywhere and anytime.”
Leovegas mobile casino is based mainly on online poker where users can play and learn online and earn money. Currently, 9stacks offers online poker services in 24 states in India. Along with poker, it also includes the companies offering fantasy league and rummy contests.
Manish Keterpal, WaterBridge Ventures Managing Partner added, “India is at the height of adopting online gaming at a huge rate with significant rise in number of players and revenue expected in online gaming. Because of such a great mobile access, convenience, increasing passive income and amazing user experience, online gaming will have great wallet share.”
The company had raised funding of whopping $1.55 million (i.e. around INR 10 Cr) in December 2017 from a large number of investors, including Purnima Khandelwal (founder, INI Farms), Swati Gupta (founder, IndustryBuying), Kartik Sheth (chief executive, Wynk Music), and Maheshwar Peri (founder, Careers360).
The Significance of Online Gaming in India
In India, online gaming space has been growing at a rapid rate and there is still a scope for a lot of players who are going to try their luck in platforms like inc42.com. Here are some of the facts you should know –
- According to a KPMG report in May 2017, it is estimated that online gaming industry will cross over $1 billion of market share by 2021 and add 190 million gamers in India.
- India is estimated to have around 13% of online mobile gamers in the world. According to a Flurry Analytics report, India ranks as one of the top five countries for mobile and online gaming in the world.
- According to Frost and Sullivan report, there are more than 250 online gaming startups in India in 2017, while it was only 20 five years ago.
- Newzoo, a gaming data forecast firm, also reported that international online gaming market is estimated to cross $137.9 billion milestone in the year 2018, when digital revenues are about to reach 91% of market, i.e. around $125.3 billion.
Ecommerce platform Amazon has also entered in this spectrum earlier this year by joining hands with Nazara Technologies, a mobile gaming startup based in Mumbai, to offer localized gaming experience in India for the users of Amazon Fire TV.
Nazara took 10% stake in August in VR gaming company based in Bangalore, InstaSportzConsultancy and it has planned to raise it to 26% by the month of November. By investing in InstaSportz, Nazara is also competing for Smaash, a VR gaming and entertainment giant backed by Sachin Tendulkar.
