Flipkart Acquires Mobile Gaming Startup Mech Mocha To Strengthen Its Gaming Strategy

• Walmart owned the e-commerce platform Flipkart acquires the intellectual property of Bangalore-based gaming startup Mech Mocha.
• Mech Mocha was co-founded by Arpita Kapoor and Mohit Rangaraju, and the company is backed by investors like Accel Partners, Blume Ventures, and Shunwei Capital.

Walmart owned e-commerce company Flipkart announced its acquisition of the intellectual property (IP) of Bangalore-based mobile gaming startup Mech Mocha for an undisclosed amount.

With this acquisition, the Mech Mocha development team will join Flipkart, intended to help Flipkart's gaming team to develop new formats to boost user engagement on its own GameZone platform.

Along with this, Flipkart will take over 10-odd games that Mech Mocha has developed, including Ludo, Carrom, Snakes and Ladders, and Cricket.

With this investment, Flipkart intends to target first-time e-commerce users and casual gamers who engage through various online gaming platforms.

In February 2014, The startup first raised an undisclosed amount from the Angels, including Ravi Trivedi (Founder of Srijan Capital) and Devendra Parulekar (Cofounder of SaffronStays).

In December 2015, Mech Mocha raised $1 million (or about Rs 6.7 crore) in its Seed funding round led by Blume Ventures with the participation of e-commerce major Flipkart.

Following, In April 2017, Mech Mocha had raised $5 million in its second tranche of Series A funding round led by Accel Partners, Shunwei Capital, and Blume Ventures. Reportedly, The startup was in talks to raise around $10 million in its Series B funding round.

The startup is backed by Accel Partners, Shunwei Capital, and Blume Ventures, who invested in Mech Mocha's Seed funding rounds. So far, the startup has raised over $10 million in a total of five funding rounds.

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“We look forward to being a part of the Flipkart ecosystem and leveraging the Flipkart Cloud Platform, Super Coins, Reward store, and Flipkart Ads platform to strengthen the platform for our users,” said Kapoor (Co-founder & CEO of Mech Mocha).

"Our observations of Flipkart GameZone reflect this trend as we see a strong correlation between casual gamers becoming early shoppers on Flipkart for their digital journey," said Prakash Sikaria, Flipkart Vice-President.

"From having Flipkart as our seed investor along with Blume to now joining hands to build entertainment at scale for India - it's been quite a full circle. Feeling immense gratitude towards all team Mech Mocha members, investors, advisors, and partners," said Prakash Sikaria on Twitter.

Due to the Jio 4G revolution, The online gaming industry in India has grown significantly over the past few years. Specifically, The investments from Tencent, Alibaba, and Nazara brought the mobile gaming industry in massive growth.

According to the Statista report, Mobile gaming dominates with around 51% of the total gaming revenue distribution globally, While PC Games holds 24% and Console games hold 25% in revenue share.

By 2021, the Mobile Gaming market is expected to reach $180 billion worldwide. Meanwhile, Asia is currently the biggest gaming marketplace with more than $41 billion in revenue. (MediaKix report)

About Mech Mocha - Mech Mocha is a Bangalore-based mobile gaming startup founded in 2014 by Arpita Kapoor and Mohit Rangaraju. Mech Mocha operates India's most popular live social gaming platform called Hello Play.

Mech Mocha has developed more than 10 games, including real-time multiplayer titles such as Snakes & Ladders, Carrom, Ludo, and Cricket.

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