India-based casual games firm Zupee has revealed a partnership with Indian tech firm Jio Platforms, with a planned emphasis on releasing additional games in multiple languages.
Jio and Jio Phone users will have access to Zupee’s games thanks to this partnership, giving Zupee the biggest reach of any India-based games company.
Zupee is also aiming to capture as much of the 5G handset market as possible prior to 5G’s commercial launch in India, as 150 million such handsets are predicted to sell by the launch time.
"Zupee has always been a behavioural science, human motivation and culture first start-up, bringing the best of India's engineering talent, creativity and storytelling abilities under one roof," said Zupee founder and CEO Dilsher Singh.
"Jio is the perfect partner for this journey as we look to penetrate the remotest areas of India all the way to the most disadvantaged people to bring them into the fold. This resonates firmly with our idea of the internet of the future which would be open, permissionless, decentralised and limitless."
Expanded reach
In addition to the partnership, Zupee's has revealed that it has completed a Series B funding round raising a total of $72 million. After already raising $30 million earlier last year, this brings the total funding from its Series B rounds to $102 million.
Investors included WestCap Group, Tomales Bay Capital, Nepean Capital, AJ Capital, Matrix Partners India and Orios Venture Partners.
The recent funding round brings the firm's total raised to $121 million at a valuation of $600 million. To date, Zupee has generated more than 70 million downloads.
The funds raised will be used to develop products, hire talent, expand to new locations, and more, with a ‘language-agnostic’ approach.
"The timing for this partnership could not be better as we are going to be focussing on innovations in edge computing, decentralised data networks and artificial intelligence creating a truly global platform with the best that India has to offer," Singh added.
"I remain equally bullish on enhancing the footprint of the Zupee Skilling Academy where we will be at the forefront of empowering the youth of our country for the future of work and jobs through our equal opportunity pillars and our collective efforts on deepening democracy."
Recently, The Sandbox revealed the signing of multiple partnerships with Hong Kong firms and industry leaders with real estate NFTs being sold.
