ⓘ Featured image: MPL co-founders; Sai Srinivas Kiran G (L) and Shubham Malhotra
Bengaluru, India-based fantasy sports platform Mobile Premier League (MPL), on Friday, raised $90 million in Series B round led by SIG Global, joined by RA MPL Holding Pte., an entity owned by OYO’s CEO Ritesh Agarwal – infusing $500k in the round. Various angel investors including Haresh Chawla, Amrish Rau, Jitendra Gupta, Gaurav Munjal, Pawan Kumar Ongle and Shubham Gupta had also participated in the funding round for MPL.
According to an exclusive report published by Entrackr, MPL has allotted 44 preference shares at an issue price of $11,333.3 per share to raise $500K from RA MPL Holding Pte, shows filings made by the company in Singapore. Agarwal had registered this entity on October 2.
Agarwal has notably also established Aroa Ventures in Singapore in July to invest in growth-stage startups. The venture capital firm is headed by Gaurav Gulati, former COO of Innov8, and yet to invest in Indian startups.
Founded in September 2018 by Sai Srinivas Kiran G (CEO) and Shubham Malhotra (COO), MPL works with third-party developers and then publishes their games on its platform for the users to participate in skill-based gaming, such as cricket, puzzles, chess and crosswords to win cash prizes.
The company claims that it has grown to over 60 plus games and 60 million users until now, and the number of players on the platforms got skyrocketed to 7x during Indian Premier League (IPL) – witnessing a 100 percent growth in the number of downloads. Besides, India, MPL also has a remarkable user base in Indonesia.
This $90 million funding round for MPL is notably the second-largest investment into a gaming startup this year, after the $225 million funding round for Dream 11 in September, raised from Tiger Global Management, TPG Tech Adjacencies, ChrysCapital and Footpath Ventures.
MPL last year in April raised $35.5 million in Series A funding round from Sequoia India, Times Internet, and GoVentures.
