Gaming startups Gamezop, Fanspole score fresh capital

On Thursday, gaming companies Advergame Technologies, which owns and operates multi-game platform Gamezop, and Fanspole Online Solutions, which runs sports social fantasy gaming platform Fanspole, announced raising fresh capital in separate statements. 

Advergame Technologies said it has raised $4.3 million in a Series A funding round, led by early stage investment firm BITKRAFT Ventures, with participation from consumer growth capital firm Velo Partners and stage agnostic investment firm FJ Labs.

The Gurugram based startup will deploy the fresh funds to grow the mobile esports format and establish a presence overseas, the statement said. The company also has an office in New Delhi.

Founded in 2015 by brothers Yashash and Gaurav Agarwal, Gamezop offers over 270 games, claims to have integrated 1,600 apps on its platform and has over 34 million users every month. 

Parent firm Advergame last raised funds in 2016, when KWAN Talent Management Agency, Powerhouse Ventures, Tracxn Labs, The Asian Ecommerce Alliance, and two angel investors infused $350,000 in the company, as per VCCEdge data.

“Growth of mobile esports is truly democratising the access to competitive gaming and the ability to win real rewards. We decided to take it one notch further by going HTML5 and eliminating the need to force app sideloads – saves us a lot of money and our users a lot of friction,” Yashash Agarwal, also the CEO of Gamezop, said.

BITKRAFT has been eyeing a foray into the Indian gaming market for a while, Malte Barth, founding general partner of the company, said. 

“With Gamezop, the factors that excite us the most came together nicely – proven model ready to scale, extreme capital efficiency, solid product moat and an unfair advantage in user acquisition. That Gamezop could scale to over 34 million users in a highly competitive space while being profitable and with minimal external capital highlights the team’s capabilities to be a major internet company,” he said.

On the other hand, Mumbai-based Fanspole raised an undisclosed amount in a bridge funding round, dubbed a pre-seed round, from venture capital firm Better Capital.

The startup also launched a fantasy sports app, which will enable users to create their own contests to play with their friends and family.

The fresh capital will be deployed for product development and marketing purposes, a statement said.

Founded in 2015 by Aniket Shinde and Hardik Gondaliya, Fanspole allows users to create contests and play public as well as private games. It claims to have over 2,50,000 fans playing more than 70,000 contests on its platform. It currently supports sports and esports such as cricket, football, PubG, Call of Duty and Free Fire.

Read: Locked down India turns to online gaming to take the edge off

Fundraising activities in the gaming sector has been lukewarm this month. However, June witnessed two deals in the space.

Gaming and sports media company Nazara Technologies acquired Kae Capital’s stocks worth Rs 14.6 crore in Bengaluru-based fantasy sports startup HalaPlay Technologies to become the majority stakeholder. Additionally, online poker platform Pocket52 raised $1.75 million in a Series A funding round from game development company Gameskraft.