[Funding Alert] Matrix Leads $8 Million Series A Round In Gaming Start-Up Zupee The company said it would use the new funds to develop its technology further, build the team and in marketing.
By Debroop Roy
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Zupee, a skill-based gaming start-up, has raised $8 million in a Series A round led by Matrix Partners India. Falcon Edge Capital, WestCap Group, Orios Venture Partners and the company's early-stage backer Smile Group also participated in the investment round.
Founded by IIT Kanpur graduates Dilsher Singh Malhi and Siddhant Saurabh, the Zupee app runs live quiz tournaments throughout the day, covering over 100 topics that range from Bollywood to Mathematics.
"We at Zupee are geared to serve 100 million users and be a leader in skill based gaming in India. We will be using the capital raised from this round to invest deeper in technology, team and marketing," said co-founder Malhi, in a statement.
Market Opportunity
According to a statement by the company, the online gaming market is growing at 40 per cent annually and is expected to reach a $14 billion market size in India by 2025.
The Zupee app is currently available in English and Hindi, and had more than 5 million downloads as of April 1. The app sees over 10 million gameplays every month. In the last 12 months, Zupee claims its user-base has grown by 100 times while gross transaction value has increased 700 times.
"Zupee has built a truly unique mobile-gaming product that allows players to showcase their knowledge, while at the same time tap into their intrinsic need to compete with their friends and other gamers," said Tarun Davda, managing director at Matrix India.
Last year, Zupee had raised $1 million in seed funding from Smile Group, which also incubated the start-up.
"Gaming is the future of entertainment and we were lucky to back Zupee's extremely talented founders in our venture builder platform. Zupee has emerged as one of the leading players in skill based gaming & we remain excited to extend our platform's support in this next phase of Zupee's growth," said Harish Bahl and Manish Vij of Smile Group in a joint statement.
