Matrix Partners invests in mobile social gaming firm Red Monster

Matrix Partners India has invested an undisclosed amount in Red Monster Games India Pvt Ltd, a mobile social gaming company. This is Red Monster's first institutional round of financing, which will be used to build mobile social games for the India market across the casino, arcade, casual and invest express categories.

"Our vision is to build the largest, mobile-first, social gaming company out of India," said Kunal Kapur, CEO, Red Monster Games.

"We believe that the market is opening up in terms of user-base and monetisation, leading to a massive India-focused social gaming opportunity. Our first game Real Teen Patti is a step in this direction. We decided to partner with Matrix Partners India as we believe they will give us the necessary edge to win in this market," Kapur said.

The company was founded by Kapur and Kiran Upadhya. An alumnus of Indian School of Business (Hyderabad) and Carnegie Mellon University (Pennsylvania), Kapur was earlier senior product manager at Zynga. Kapur had also earlier founded a company called SnatchKing, which was acquired by Midday Infomedia. His partner Upadhya had previously worked at companies, including Zynga, SupportSoft, Wipro and BMC India.

Red Monster is a mobile social gaming company building games focused on the India market. Starting with casino games, it plans to expand into other genres of social gaming, including original IP-led games.

"We believe in the mobile gaming opportunity in India and it is an area where we plan to make multiple investments. We share the founders' vision of creating world-class products for Indian users and using innovative marketing strategies. Matrix continues to be bullish on the mobile internet space and will continue to make early-stage investments," said Vikram Vaidyanathan, director, Matrix India.

In June, Delhi-based mobile gaming company Octro had raised $15 million in its first round of institutional funding from Sequoia Capital.

Matrix Partners India is an investment firm with Rs 3,000 crore under management. It invests in companies targeting the Indian consumer market at the seed, early and early growth stages. The firm has just participated in a $16 million funding round by Ver Se, which owns NewsHunt.

It also recently co-invested along with Tiger Global and other investors in a $60 million funding round raised by by Quikr.

Matrix's other investments include Biscoot (digital entertainment), MSwipe (mobile POS), Ola (cab marketplace), Quikr (online classifieds), Stayzilla (stays marketplace), Traffline (local social information) and Woo (social dating), WeAreHolidays (online marketplace for holiday packages). Matrix has a global network of funds investing in the US, China and India with $3 billion under management.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)