Rolocule Games raises angel funding from Mumbai Angels, Blume Ventures; To shift from 'paid' model to 'free' games

Pune-based gaming startup Rolocule Games Pvt Ltd has raised undisclosed angel funding from Mumbai Angels and Blume Ventures. As part of the deal, Ajeet Khurana from Mumbai Angels will join the board of Rolocule Games.

The fund raised will be used to scale up operations, product development and hiring.

Rolocule Games was started by Rohit Gupta and Anuj Tandon in 2009. The company had earlier received seed funding from CIIE (Centre of Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship) at IIM-Ahmedabad.

An MS in Computer Science from Columbia University, Gupta had previously worked with Cradle Technologies, Infosys Technologies, Columbia Business School and Electronic Arts. Tandon, an alumnus of Pune Institute of Computer Technology, had worked with Infosys and Tech Mahindra before setting up Rolocule.

Speaking to Techcircle.in, co-founder Anuj Tandon said, "Right now, we intend to shift to the Android platform as well, besides iOS. We are also creating a parallel platform for game development to increase our number of games."

Currently a team of seven, Rolocule will scale it up to 15 by the end of August and hire four engineers to develop new games. The company will also shift to a bigger office, post funding.

There will be a shift in business model as well. As of now, the company operates a premium model and offers games priced between $1.99 and $4.99. But Rolocule will come up with free games in the coming months. "The idea is to develop paid apps (such as virtual goods) to keep people hooked to the games," said Tandon. The company will also create social games to increase user engagement.

Of late, the gaming space is attracting considerable investments. In February this year, Mumbai-based Gamiana Digital Entertainment Pvt Ltd raised nearly $1 million from the Indian Angel Network. Last March, Mumbai-based online gaming company Games2Win had also raised a Series B funding of $6 million from Clearstone Venture Partners and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB India Capital Partners). Also, earlier this year, Nirvana Venture Advisors, the early-stage VC fund of the Patni family, acquired 10 per cent stake in Games2win from a clutch of VC and PE firms, as well as from employee shareholders, for an undisclosed amount. A couple of months ago, Nazara Technologies entered into a partnership with gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) to bring the EA mobile catalogue of game titles to mobile phone users in the Middle East.