WinZO raises $65 million in funding led by Griffin Gaming Partners

India’s gaming and entertainment platform WinZO announced on Friday announced it has raised $65 million in a Series C funding round led by Griffin Gaming Partners in California, bringing the company's total capital raised to $90 million. This is Griffin's first venture into India.

This round of funding comes eight months after the company received a Series B round from Makers Fund, Courtside Ventures, and Steve Pagliuca, co-chairman of Bain Capital.

Speaking on the development, Paavan Nanda, co-founder, WinZO, said “Griffin’s experience and precious insights across the global media and entertainment landscape shall be valuable as we continue to disrupt the Indian gaming ecosystem.”

“With this raise, we plan to grow much faster and become an even more lovable product for our consumers. WinZO is poised and strategically well positioned to be one of the first 'Made in India' products that will rule the world in coming years,” he added.

Phil Sanderson, co-founder of Griffin Gaming Partners, will also join the WinZO board of directors.

WinZO's goal is to create a culturally relevant mobile games platform with broad adoption by focusing on competitive multiplayer gaming experiences. With an extensive influencer network catering to more than 50 million registered users, it seeks to position itself at the forefront of Indian gaming culture. The platform is currently available in 12 languages, allowing access to previously untapped demographics.

“We are excited to make Griffin Gaming Partners’ first investment in India backing WinZO, the company behind the largest social gaming app in the country,” Nick Tuosto, co-founder of Griffin Gaming Partners, said.

“We saw in WinZO’s games incredible retention and monetization metrics we believe set the company up for continued explosive growth and are proud to support the team on the journey,” said Tuosto, who is also managing director and head of gaming at LionTree.

Over the last year, the company's revenues have tenfolded, and it has partnered with over 100 leading game developers to enhance the efficiency of the Indian mobile gaming market through in-game integration of WinZO's social gaming framework.

Founded in early 2018 by Nanda, WinZO partners with third-party developers to host games on their Android app. Its platform, currently available in 12 languages, facilitates over 2.5 billion micro transactions per month across a portfolio of over 70 games. The company has over 50 million registered users.

On a platform level, WinZO has no competition because no one is promoting a horizontal marketplace approach. Meanwhile, Rummycircle, RummyBaazi, Dream11, and MPL compete in a few of its verticals.

Whereas WinZO Games' revenue is expected to grow quickly in FY21 as adoption and consumption of digital gaming has increased multifold in the last year, the company's revenue increased 600% in FY20 to Rs 26.72 crore. Its losses for the fiscal year ending March 2020 were Rs 26.68 crore.

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• IGL bags Rs 3.6 crore to increase user engagement on its platform

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