PubG owner Krafton participates in $42 million funding round in e-sports platform Loco

Indian e-gaming platform Loco has raised $42 million (₹330 crore) investment in a Series A round, with participation from Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures, PubG owners Krafton, and Korea investment partners. 

The round was led by global, early-stage venture fund Hashed. Other participants included Makers fund, Lumikai, and Hiro Capital.   

Loco said that it plans to use the funding to invest in the development of the Indian gaming ecosystem.   

The company said that it will invest the money in Web3.0, in working closely with content creators, and companies building intellectual property for gaming tournaments.   

Loco provides a platform to stream games online, it has communities for games such as BGMI, Call of Duty Mobile, Clash of Clans, Grand Theft Auto and Valorant. The company also houses esports gaming teams such as Godlike, XO, Revenant Esports, 8bit and the likes.   

Loco also hosts tournaments in partnership with publishers such as Krafton, Activision, Ubisoft and Riot Games. The company has a direct Application Programming Interface (API) linked integration with Krafton, to enable better viewing and streaming of games with the publisher. 

Loco has partnered with companies such as the NBA, Logitech and Red Bull to partner e-sports programs.   

“Loco is enabling users to interact with streamers in ways they could not have done before. We are enabling gamers to find their own gaming clan - supporting streamers they love,” said Anirudh Pandita and Ashwin Suresh, Founders of Loco.   

According to Tracxn technologies, the Online gaming industry in India saw funding of $443.3 million between January-December 2021, this is a 108% jump from the funding of $212.9 million in January-December 2020.    

According to a November 2021 report by Sequoia Capital and Boston Consulting group, the Indian gaming industry is expected to hit revenues of $5 billion by 2025, led by mobile. However, at $1.5 billion currently, it only forms 1% of the global gaming market.