New Bengaluru-based casual gaming startup Giga Fun Studios has raised $2.4 Mn in a Seed round led by Lumikai Fund and Fireside Ventures in participation with All In Capital, Kettleborough VC, and Riverwalk Holdings.
“It will utilize the funds to create a new benchmark in casual games built to high quality for Indian and global audiences,” the startup said.
Speaking on the fundraise, Krishnendu Mukherjee, Co-founder & CEO, at Giga Fun Studios said, “We have been brainstorming the idea of creating a gaming studio that caters to the Indian audience and the core problem we mutually identified was that while the current dominant casual games (such as Candy Crush) are very high in quality, they haven’t been able to fully unlock an Indian player base due to a lack of cultural resonance.”
“This is additionally visible in the lack of monetization participation of the Indian player. With over 5 Bn downloads, India is one of the largest download markets for casual games. We believe that with the right themes and geo-specific mechanics, we will be able to crack adoption and monetization for casual games in India,” Mukherjee added.
Commenting on the investment, Justin Shriram Keeling, Founding General Partner, Lumikai said, “We believe that culture-themed casual games have the potential to unlock massive disruption in the gaming space in India. We’re excited to be partnering with Giga Fun Studios at an early stage and look forward to supporting them with our deep gaming expertise & network on their mission to build a match3 engine that’ll allow them to build high-quality games, built specifically with geo-specific mechanics, localized game loops, unique distribution, and India first monetization. “
Further talking about the investment round, Shreyans Gangwal, Vice President, Fireside Ventures said, “We at Fireside Ventures are excited to announce our very first investment in the gaming sector and partnering with the gaming expertise of Rahul S, Krishnendu & Rahul D and bringing our expertise of consumer brands & marketing to create a class-leading casual gaming platform from India.”
“Globally, gaming has already eclipsed movies & music by ~3x and is one of the largest and fastest emerging sectors of digital consumption. This will serve the unmet needs of Indian consumers to drive a multi-billion-dollar market opportunity over the next few years. High quality, deeply localized games built on proven game formats with the right in-app purchase-driven monetization are likely to be the first beneficiaries in the wave of gaming which is expected to be an $8.5bn+ market opportunity in India,” he added.