Digital gaming startup MPL acqui-hires software developer Crevise Technologies

Digital gaming startup Mobile Premier League (MPL) on Wednesday announced the acquisition of Pune-based Crevise Technologies Pvt. Ltd in a cash-and-stock deal.

Crevise Technologies provides end-to-end product engineering consultation and has expertise in DevOps, machine learning and full-stack development.
This marks MPL’s first acquisition in the country since its launch in September 2018.

Mukta Apahale and Atul Aphale, who founded Crevise Technologies in 2016, will lead the 10-member MPL team from Pune, the statement said.

Through the acquisition, MPL aims to use Crevise’s experience in DevOps and reliability engineering to make the platform robust, agile, and reliable for its users, it added.

“We needed a strong team of DevOps engineers to move the delivery capacity up swiftly. Before deciding to bring Crevise Technologies onboard as a part of the MPL team we had a great stint working with them as a client partner. While working with them, we also noticed synergies in work ethics, team values, and cultural fitment, which led us to move towards this acquisition,” said Shubham Malhotra, co-founder and chief operating officer at MPL.

MPL, operated by Galactus Funware Technology Pvt. Ltd, was founded by Sai Srinivas Karan and Malhotra. It runs a gaming platform where users compete in live tournaments for skill-based mobile games to win money.

MPL allows users to choose a game of their choice such as Sudoku, Crosswords or Brick Breaker and then pick a tournament which suits their wallet. Each tournament runs for a certain duration and has a specific number of players.

Once the results are announced for a tournament, winners can cash out immediately with Paytm, Unified Payments Interface or bank transfer.

MPL is one of the top ranking apps across categories on the Google Play Store with more than 25 million installs.

Last week, the company annouced its foray into Southeast Asian market with the launch of operations in Indonesia.

Prior to this, it raised $35.5 million (about Rs 250 crore) in a Series A round of funding led by venture capital and growth-equity investment firm Sequoia Capital, Times Internet and GoVentures, the venture capital arm of Indonesian ride hailing firm Go-Jek.

MPL competes with fantasy sports platform Dream11 which joined the unicorn bandwagon last month when Hong Kong-based hedge fund Steadview Capital made an investment in the company.