According to an exclusive report by media outlet VCCircle, India-based Galactus Funware Technology Pvt. Ltd. has completed a Series A funding round that attracted some heavy hitters. Galactus operates a digital skill gaming startup, Mobile Premier League (MPL), and the funding round saw it raise $5 million, led by the Sequoia Capital venture capital firm with participation by other, unidentified angel investors.
Galactus hopes to use the funds to expand MPL and improve its operations. The valuation of the company, either prior to or after receiving the investments, wasn’t revealed.
MPL was founded by tech entrepreneurs Shubham Malhotra and Sai Srinivas Kiran Garimella. The platform provides a mechanism for participating in a variety of tournaments with varying levels of skills, such as monster truck, space breaker, Sudoku, fruit chop and others.
The tournaments offer real-money payouts. Winners are able to cash out their winnings immediately following a tournament through a bank transfer, Paytm or UPI (Unified Payments Interface). MPL asserts that it is the largest real-money mobile eSports platform in the world. The application has already been downloaded over a million times from the Google Play store.
Currently, users are able to participate in the tournaments through the use of tokens without having to deposit their own entry fees. However, this will more than likely change in the future once the platform develops a large enough following.
The two MPL entrepreneurs previously worked at Bharti SoftBank, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and SoftBank Corp. They are also the founders of Creo, which produces Teewe HDMI media streaming device (an alternative to Chromecast). Creo also saw funding from Sequoia when it launched in 2016. Creo was purchased by Hike Messenger in August of last year. Hike is backed by Tencent, SoftBank, Bharti and Foxconn.
The eSports audience in India is still relatively nascent. It is estimated to have only around 2 million fans and approximately the same amount of occasional viewers, according to the Frost and Sullivan consulting firm. Despite the low numbers, many are expecting a growth explosion and anticipate that there will be five times the amount of enthusiasts within the next three years.
