E-sports gaming platform Gamerji has raised $1.1 million in a pre-Series A round led by Unicorn India Ventures. The round also saw participation from Stadia Ventures, Urmin Group family office, and existing investors reported Entrackr. Gamerji plans to use the fresh funds to enhance tournament organization technology, build social features for the gamers and expand to MENA and south-east Asia.
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The Ahmedabad based company was founded in 2019 by gaming expert and serial entrepreneur Soham Thacker. The platform allows users to organise esports tournaments where other users can play tournaments of their favorite games, communicate, share content and win prizes. The company has consolidated procedures such as registrations, player management, and payments, making it a one-stop platform for e-sports tournaments.
Gamerji said it is currently having 2.3 million gamers from India and has conducted more than 29K tournaments to date. Since the seed round of $400K in Dec 2020, Gamerji said it has increased its user base by 3X and is conducting more than 200 tournaments every day for more than 15 titles including Call of Duty, Asphalt 9, Clash Royale, PUBG, LUDO, FIFA, and WCC Rivals.
As per a recent report by the All India Gaming Federation in 2020, there were 365 million online gamers in the country, with the number expected to rise to 510 million by 2022.
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The company plans to target 5 million users from India in 2022. Gamerji launched its new version in November 2021 with features like enhanced profile, gaming stats, community creation, e-sports content, and collegiate leagues.
Gamerji believes in bridging the gap between amateur to professional level gamers through their tournaments, it said in a press statement. Bhaskar Majumdar, Managing Partner, Unicorn India Ventures, says, “The gaming industry in India is finally coming of age as the government is setting up the AVGC hub in Bangalore and against the backdrop of metaverse and Web 3.0. E-Sports is growing the fastest within the overall gaming market. Gamerji has demonstrated this thesis well given their growth numbers. We continue to share the vision of the company and back them as they look to expand to other international geographies.”
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Soham Thacker, Founder and CEO, Gamerji, says, “At Gamerji, we strive to provide gamers with a platform to begin their e-sports journey by participating in daily competitive tournaments, building their stats and stand a chance to make a mark in the gaming world. Esports is still at a very early stage in India and there is a lot of talent that needs to be explored. Gamerji intends to be a platform of choice where gamers can showcase their skills, build their stats and grow the community.”
Valay Patel, CTO, Gamerji, said, “In the past 12 months, we have added 1.7 million users, conducted 21k+ tournaments, launched tournaments IPs in Gamerji Community Challenge and College Gaming league. We will use the fresh funds to improve our product experience with innovations in technology and upgrade the infrastructure to serve the next set of 7 to 8 million users along with expanding the platform to other strategic territories”