Gamezop raises Rs. 32 Crores Series A led by BITKRAFT Ventures

Gamezop, a leading multi-game platform with over 34 Mn monthly active users has raised Rs. 32 crores ($ 4.3Mn) investment from BITKRAFT Ventures, Velo Partners, and FJ Labs. BITKRAFT is the world’s largest esports fund and co-owner of the publicly-traded esports ETF, NYSE: NERD. Velo Partners is a global real money gaming fund and early backer of Adda52 and Junglee Rummy.

Gamezop is operated by Advergame Technologies Private Limited and was founded by brothers Yashash and Gaurav Agarwal in 2015. Prior to this, the company raised $ 350K in 2016.

The company licenses HTML5 games from top developers and embeds them in over 1,600 popular apps – including Myntra, Grofers, ShareChat, MX Player, Glance (InMobi), and PhonePe – enabling users of these apps to play games casually or competitively for cash. This way, Gamezop piggybacks on the distribution network of these partner apps and acquires users without any spending. The partner apps see an average 40% boost in engagement time through games, in addition to getting a 50% share in revenue made by Gamezop.

Gamezop’s partner apps are free to choose between two integration options: mobile esports, where users compete on skill-based games in live tournaments to win cash prizes; and free-to-play games, where users play games casually. The company will use the investment to grow the mobile esports format and establish presence in select overseas markets through its piggybacking model.

“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,” commented CEO and Co-Founder, Yashash Agarwal. “BITKRAFT is the clear thought leader when it comes to esports, gaming, and immersive entertainment. They were at the top of our list when we began to look for investment partners to help us grow the business.”

Commenting on the funding, Malte Barth, Founding General Partner, BITKRAFT said, “We have been looking to enter the Indian gaming market for a while and 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 Mn 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.”