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India-based sports fantasy platform, FanClash has secured $40 million in series B round funding from Sequoia Capital India, Falcon Edge (Alpha Wave Ventures), Info Edge India, and from its existing investors Matic Networks (Polygon).
“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,” FanClash in its statement said.
Speaking on the funding round, Rishabh Bhansali, Co-founder of FanClash 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 allows them 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.”
“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” Richa Singh, Co-founder of FanClash added.
Commenting on the investment in FanClash, Rajan Anandan, MD of Sequoia India 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 monetizing 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 revolutionize the esports industry, and Sequoia Capital India is excited to partner with the FanClash team.”
“Esports has proven to be the next step in the evolution of the gaming industry. This is a global market that 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” Anirudh Singh, MD of Alpha Wave Global added.
Further adding to the investment in the eSport platform, Kitty Agarwal, Partner, Info Edge Venture Fund said, “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.”