Online gaming startup Mobile Premier League (MPL) is on track to become India’s second gaming unicorn.
The three-year-old startup has raised around USD 100 million in a fresh funding round that skyrocketed its valuation to USD 800 million, a report by local media Economic Times (ET) said, citing sources.
The latest round saw new investors including Composite Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures, and Telstra Ventures come on board the company’s cap table, while some of its existing backers also pitched in. MPL’s list of backers includes MDI Ventures, Pegasus Tech Ventures, RTP Global, SIG, Sequoia India, Go-Ventures, and Times Internet.
MPL’s valuation was reportedly about USD 450 million when it raised USD 90 million in Series C round in September last year. With the completion of this funding round, MPL’s total capital raised to date will touch USD 230 million.
MPL is one of the leading online gaming platforms in the world’s second-most populous county. It offers real money games in the form of e-sport tournaments, wherein users enter a tournament by paying a nominal fee to stand a chance to win a bigger pool of money worth millions.
Currently, it offers over 60 real money games including fantasy sports, rummy, chess, pool, and ludo. The company claims to have a user base of over 60 million and offers a cash prize of INR 20 crore (USD 2.7 million) every day.
Last year, real-money gaming firms witnessed a sharp spike in their user base as people flocked to these platforms to get out of the boredom of staying indoors due to COVID-19 induced travel restrictions. MPL, which competes with Dream11, Paytm First Games, and WinZo among others, quadrupled its gross merchandise value to USD 1 billion between March and September last year, the ET report said.
At the time of Series C funding, the company said it would add more features on its gaming platform like live streaming and audio and video content features and expand into overseas markets including South Korea, Japan, and North America.