WinZO Games To Invest Over Rs 400 Crore In Gaming Startups
In a statement, the company said it expects to invest in startups across genres of gaming, content creation, and live-ops.
WinZO Games, a social gaming platform that hosts more than 100 games such as ludo, pool, and racing games, said it will invest about $50 million, or Rs 415 crore, across startups.
The Delhi-based gaming startup announced the fourth edition of its Game Developer Fund, with the largest-ever corpus of $50 million.
It will invest in startups across genres of gaming, content creation, live-ops, and security, the company said in a statement. It looks like it will put at least $10 million of the fund into U.S.-based startups.
The company will also help its portfolio companies expand and monetise in India, it said. "While the revenues of the mobile gaming industry in the U.S. declined in the first quarter of 2022, India’s gaming industry is growing at a 38% CAGR to cross $10 billion in five years," the company said.
"Global gaming companies have found it difficult to earn revenues in India. The monetisation issue faced by game developers and studios can be attributed to the replication of conventional game monetisation models in India despite the wide economic and cultural gaps," said Paavan Nanda, co-founder of WinZO.
The company's monetisation model, which enables micro-transactions ranging from Rs 1 to Rs 10, is what favours the Indian audience and delivers an uptick in revenue for game developers, he said.
WinZO itself has raised a total of $100 million, or around Rs 8,200 crore, across multiple rounds from California-based Griffin Gaming Partners, other gaming funds like Maker’s Fund and Courtside, and India-based VC Kalaari Capital.