Bengaluru based eSports platform Mobile Premier League (MPL) has raised Series A investment of $35.5 million led by Sequoia India, Times Internet, and GoVentures.
The funds will enable the recently-launched mobile gaming platform to invest in products and user growth in India. MPL had raised a $5-million seed round from Sequoia and BeeNext last year.
MPL was co-founded by ex-Zynga executive Sai Srinivas Kiran and Shubh Malhotra. Both Malhotra and Kiran earlier co-founded CREO, a hardware start-up that was acquired by Hike Messenger in 2017.
Currently, the MPL platform claims to have over 25 million registered signups across both Android and iOS. A large part of MPL’s user base is from non-metro cities, according to the company’s chief executive Sai Srinivas Kiran.
In a statement to Inc42 cofounder and CEO, Sai Srinivas Kiran G said that “the funds will help Mobile Premier League step up its growth plans, and will be used to improve the product and for user growth in India.” Prior to this round, the company raised $5 Mn in seed funding from investors such as BEENEXT.
MPL’s latest funding round also comes at a time when fantasy gaming start-ups have been mopping up large rounds from tech investors in India and abroad. Mumbai-based fantasy gaming PORTAL Dream 11 had raised around $100 million from China’s Tencent in September last year.
