ITV

Tag: Sequoia Capital India

  • eSports startup FanClash raises $40 million to expand globally

    eSports startup FanClash raises $40 million to expand globally

    Mumbai: FanClash has raised $40 million Series B funding to fuel its mission to build a global esports fantasy, data and fan engagement platform. This succeeds a Series A round of $10 million from Sequoia Capital India, Falcon Edge (Alpha Wave Ventures) and Info Edge India in August 2021.

    There are five hundred million core esports viewers globally, growing at 20 percent CAGR. In India, this number stands at 100 million and is expected to grow threefold by 2025. FanClash provides a forum for the fans to not just enjoy the game as a viewer, but also empowers them to monetize their knowledge of esports.

    Users can create their fantasy teams from every tournament and earn rewards based on the real-life performance of the teams. This is like monetizing the knowledge of cricket or football via other fantasy platforms. While fantasy gaming has seen tremendous success in traditional sports such as cricket, electronic sports had no such channel available until FanCLash. The platform enables users to play fantasy on all leading global tournaments across top esports such as FreeFire, PUBG Mobile, COD Mobile, COD PC, Valorant, CS:GO, League of Legends, DOTA 2, etc.

    FanClash spokesperson said, “The company plans to use the funds raised for global expansion, building the team and user acquisition. FanClash released its product in India in 2021 and in the Philippines in June 2022 and aims to launch in Vietnam and the USA by early 2023.”
     
    Speaking of these milestones, FanClash co-founder Rishabh Bhansali said,“Esports fans around the world spend about 8-10 hours a week watching tournaments and gameplay, yet there are not enough avenues for players and viewers to monetize their knowledge in any way. Our customers love FanClash not only because it gives them the opportunity to compete in fantasy games, but also for making them financially independent and hence taken seriously as esports fans. The industry has corroborated this by the stellar adoption of FanClash in the last 12 months.”

    FanClash co-founder Richa Singh added, “We aspire to be a household name in the global gaming community. This is possible in esports, unlike traditional sports, because the underlying game titles have a global audience. At a broader level, our vision is to make the Indian startup ecosystem proud by creating ‘a global digital product from India, for the world’ and we believe we have the right ingredients to become world leaders.”

    Sharing his thoughts on this association, Sequoia MD Rajan Anandan said, “Online gaming has over 300 million users in India and esports has hit an inflection point with over 100 million Indian viewers. The online gaming market is also monetising well and is on track to surpass $5 billion in revenues by 2025. Going after this opportunity, FanClash is building an exciting new destination for esports fans with an incredible product that is loved by its users. We are inspired by their mission to revolutionise the esports industry, and Sequoia Capital India is excited to partner with the FanClash team.”  

    Alpha Wave Global MD Anirudh Singh added, “Esports have proven to be the next step in the evolution of the gaming industry. This is a global market which still has massive unsolved problems around fantasy as well as fan engagement. Using data as a moat, we were very impressed with the way FanClash has built out its gaming platform for global markets. The company has also shown its execution strength across all international markets, while maintaining high capital efficiency – reflected in the industry leading metrics like LTV/CAC. We are privileged to partner with the team and are looking forward to helping build out a global Esports platform.”

    “We are fortunate to be partners with the Fanclash team since their ideation days. The team is even more special for us since Richa is a returning founder whom we backed for a second time. The execution since Day 1 has been phenomenal with Fanclash becoming a category leader within two years of inception. They have been extremely capital efficient and are seeing strong user love which reflects in the superior engagement and retention of users on the platform. Esports is a large and growing market globally and Fanclash with its global ambitions is well positioned to become the global leader in esports fantasy,” said Info Edge Venture Fund partner Kitty Agarwal.

  • ‘Travelguru’ receives a $15 million capital commitment

    ‘Travelguru’ receives a $15 million capital commitment

    MUMBAI:Travelguru, India’s online travel portal, has announced that it has received a fresh infusion of capital commitment to the tune of $15 million from Battery Ventures and Sequoia Capital India.

    The second round of funding will help in building retail initiatives to support online growth. In the past one year, Travelguru has gained access to more than 72,000 hotels worldwide and alliances with 500 airlines globally, asserts an official release.

    Travelguru claims that the number of customers who it for their air, hotel stay and vacation needs is currently pegged at 70,000 customers a month. With a slew of promotional and strategic initiatives planned in the months ahead, the user base of Travelguru is set to grow by over 30 per cent month on month.

    Commenting on the investment, Travelguru CEO and founder Ashwin Damera said, “Our focus on delivering superior consumer experience through cutting edge technology, breadth of product offerings and best value travel deals has yielded great results to all our stakeholders. The second round of funding from Battery Ventures and Sequoia Capital reaffirms the growing confidence in Travelguru’s team and leadership position in the Indian travel and tourism industry.”

    Battery Ventures general partner Mark Sherman added, “We are very happy to announce our first major investment in the consumer internet space in India with Travelguru. In a short span of time, Ashwin and his team have established a distinct identity for Travelguru in the online travel space in India.”

    “We expect them to lead the market with solid industry relationships, continued product innovations, and high quality customer experiences,” he further said.

    Sequoia Capital India managing director KP Balaraj said, “We are delighted that US based Battery Ventures has chosen to join in on the second round of funding for Travelguru. The growing consumer base and the leadership status of being the largest hotel consolidator in the Indian online travel market highlights the unique position of Travelguru.

  • India specific search engine ‘Guruji.com’ launched

    India specific search engine ‘Guruji.com’ launched

    BANGALORE: Using crawl search technology, two Indian technology aspirants Anurag Dod and Gaurav Mishra have launched an India specific search engine Guruji.com. The duo claims that their 40 US located servers have a data base of around 30 million India specific pages which he informs will double over the next few months.

    During a press conference in Bangalore, Dod said, “What sets us apart is our focus on the Indian market and the Indian consumer. When an Indian consumer types in search a keyword like ‘newspaper’, the results would show him websites of the top Indian newspapers rather than site not relevant to him.” According to data available with Guruji.com, 90% of the internet queries are local in nature. Further, around 30% of the internet users on India spend 20 hours per week on the internet and after e-mail, search is the largest second use.

    Guruji.com plans to create awareness about their search engine by events at colleges and through public relations. A budget of Rs 10 million has been earmarked for spends in 20 major Indian cities over the next five to six months. 

    Guriji.com has received funding commitment to the extent of US$7million from Sequoia Capital India a VC which manages three funds totaling US$ 750 million focused on investments in India across sectors.