India gaming, e-sports player Loco raises $43m
Indian game streaming and e-sports start-up Loco has raised INR 3.3bn (USD 43.3m) in Series A funding led by Korean blockchain specialist Hashed Ventures.
India’s Lumikai Fund, UK-based Hiro Capital, and US-based Makers Fund – all three of which are focused on media and gaming – also participated. They were joined by India’s Catamaran Ventures, Korea Investment Partners, and Korean gaming studio Krafton.
Krafton led a USD 9m seed round last year with support from Lumikai, Hiro, Axilor Ventures, 3one4 Capital, and North Base Media, a US media, sports, and gaming investor. Concurrent with this round, the Korean company launched its flagship “Battlegrounds” franchise in India.
Krafton has demonstrated significant confidence in India’s digital media opportunity and its crossovers with gaming. Last year, it led a USD 45m round for content publishing app Pratilipi with a view to gamifying the Indian company’s intellectual property (IP).
Loco was incubated as a trivia game app called Showtime at digital entertainment company Pocket Aces and spun out into a separate entity in 2021. Pocket Aces has also received funding from Axilor, 3one4, and North Base, as well as from Sequoia Capital India.
Loco aims to bring together game creators and viewers with a view to community building and facilitating various content streaming and play-to-earn functions. The company describes its focus as building a social experience platform for the virtual world and democratising gaming entertainment.
The fresh capital will be used to explore metaverse opportunities, build out the streaming business, and pursue further IP-related services related to gaming tournaments. Loco has established partnerships with brands such as NBA, Red Bull, and Logitech, as well as game studios the likes of PUBG Corporation, Activision Blizzard, and Riot Games.
The company claims to be the largest investor in Indian e-sports content with “the lion’s share of Indian e-sports viewership.” It has tracked an 8x increase in monthly active viewers and a 15x increase in daily active viewers in the past year.
Since January 2021, monthly active streamers and live hours viewed are said to have grown 5x and 78x, respectively. Much of this traction has been attributed to a wider sector boom in India underpinned by greater availability of more powerful smartphones and a strong gaming culture.
“Users between the ages of 10 and 30 form the bedrock of gaming and e-sports communities worldwide and India is one of the most interesting global gaming markets, with 40% of its population belonging to this cohort,” Ethan Kim, a co-founder and partner at Hashed, said in a statement.
“We believe this new investment round will enable Loco to solidify its dominant position in game streaming and eventually provide the Indian gaming community with cutting edge Web3 products and services.”
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