Indian online gaming business Winzo raises $65m
Winzo, and Indian gaming platform focused on online pool, rummy, poker, and fantasy sports has raised a $65 million Series C round led by US-based Griffin Gaming Partners.
It brings total funding to date to $90 million, including an $18 million Series B last year featuring US-based Courtside Ventures, Hong Kong’s Makers Fund, and local investors such as Kalaari Capital. Courtside, Makers Fund, and India’s The Stuart Partners provided about $9.5 million in debt earlier this year.
Winzo offers about 70 games across categories such as casual games, e-sports, card games, and multiplayer “battle royal” games. The idea is to facilitate player-to-player competition and tournaments with cash prizes. Revenue, generated largely from game studios rather than players, is said to have grown tenfold in the past 12 months.
The company describes itself as the largest social gaming app in India, with more than 50 million registered users and a significant focus on influencer networking. Separately, it has committed $6.5 million to making its own gaming investments across two VC funds.
The key differentiator is a focus on accessibility with a rural audience. Winzo claims to process more than 2.5 billion micro-transactions a month with services in 11 Indian vernacular languages as well as English. Up to 80% of active gamers in India are estimated to live in non-metro areas.
This is Griffin’s first investment in India, which helps illustrate growing international interest in India’s competitive gaming sector. Other global investors targeting this space include UK-based Velo Partners, which currently has a portfolio of at least seven Indian gaming apps, including Winzo.
Many of the games in this space are traditionally associated with gambling and sports betting, which is illegal in India. However, they have been legally upheld as games of skill, not chance. State-by-state challenges on the status of games such as rummy has introduced significant regulatory uncertainty.
The highest-profile start-ups in this space are Dream Sports, a fantasy sports specialist also known as Dream11, and Mobile Premier League (MPL), which offers a more diversified fantasy sports, games and trivia model. Dream Sports has raised $725 million in VC funding and is valued at around $5 billion, while MPL has raised $225 million and is valued at almost $1 billion.
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