Chinese venture capital firm, Shunwei Capital, is set to make its debut investment in India by investing an equivalent of US $ 2 million in the Indian gaming startup, Mech Mocha. Shunwei Capital was founded by Xiaomi’s founder, Lei Jun. It is expected to pick up a stake in Mech Mocha by means of this investment. In December 2015, Mech Mocha had raised $1 million from the ecommerce major Flipkart and seed – stage investor, Blume Ventures. “We are in talks with multiple investors, we have conversations going on but nothing has been closed or confirmed yet”, said Arpita Kapoor, cofounder of Mech Mocha. “It’s very early stage and we are still figuring out our strategy but we will be targeting games for the Indian market”, she added. Read more on Investments
Mech Mocha is focused on designing games based on Indian culture and its target audience is Indian children and home makers. Its first game, Chota Bheem Himalayan Game, has had over 3 million downloads from children and mothers so far. Of these one million are active monthly users. Venture capital firms are increasingly investing in mobile gaming startups. According to a recent report by the business intelligence firm, App Annie, India has become the fifth largest mobile gaming market in the world owing to a sharp rise in the number of mobile game downloads and an increase in revenues for mobile gaming companies in India. India is expected to surpass Brazil and Russia which hold the third and fourth place respectively. China and USA hold the first and second ranks respectively as far as mobile gaming market is concerned. App Annie also found that download of games contributed more to App Store’s revenue than say app or music downloads. In 2015, game downloads, contributed US $ 12 million to App Store’s revenue. In 2016, the same figure went up to US $16 million. The increase in revenue was due to increase in smart phone usage and the option of carrier billing. Google Play’s prepaid vouchers, reduction in price of mobile games and apps and increased in – app purchases helped drive App Store’s revenue growth.
It is heartening to see an Indian startup get funded by a foreign firm. This shows the growing clout of the Indian Startup Ecosystem. The fact that Mech Mocha is designing games based on Indian culture is also heartening. This will help towards preserving the rich Indian culture and heritage as awareness is created in the minds of the people. Hopefully, more such Indian startups grow to become MNCs and globally recognized companies. The Indian Government should fund, promote and incubate more of such innovative startups. Read more on Startup News
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