News

99Games raises $5 million to target growing Indian market

Star Chef dev sees massive potential in India

Date Type Companies involved Size
April 17th, 2015 investment 99Games Online Private Ltd.
Ascent Capital
Kalaari Capital
$5m
99Games raises $5 million to target growing Indian market

99Games, the Indian developer behind Star Chef, has raised a funding total of $5 million in its B round.

Part of the investment came from exisiting investor Kalaari Capital, while Ascent Capital has put its faith in the studio with a cash injection.

This brings its total investment to $8.7 million.

To-date 99Games' strategy has been to develop games based on exisiting IPs for the Indian market, such as Dhoom 3 - the first million downloaded game on the Indian Windows Phone Store, while focusing on its own IPs such as Star Chef to target a global audience. 

Home and abroad

This investment will be used to maintain both the domestic and the worldwide markets that the developer is aiming to capture, with the plan being to invest in development of games based on Indian IPs as well as UA campaigns for the more wide-reaching Star Chef.

“While our focus is global in the short term, we are certainly excited about bringing gaming to the next billion population in India,” said 99Games' MD Rohith Bhat.

Kumar Shiralagi, MD of Kalaari Capital, was also optimistic about the rich potential of India:

“India presents a great opportunity for mobile games with its predominantly young population, phenomenal growth in adoption of smart phones, and rich heritage in entertainment," he said.

"Mobile games will play a critical role in fuelling growth in this domain.”

[Source: TechInAsia.com]


Features Editor

Matt is really bad at playing games, but hopefully a little better at writing about them. He's Features Editor for PocketGamer.biz, and has also written for lesser publications such as IGN, VICE, and Paste Magazine.