Giga Fun Studios in India raises $2.4 million for casual games

Casual game startup Giga Fun Studios announced today that it has raised $2.4 million in seed funding.

Lumikai, the pioneering Indian venture capital fund focused on games and interactive media, and consumer specialists Fireside Ventures led the round. All In Capital, Kettleborough VC and Riverwalk Holdings also participated in this round.

The company will use the money to create a new benchmark in casual games designed with high quality for Indian and global audiences. The founders have vast experience in building top casual games for India and the world, previously at top developers such as Zynga and m56, and will invest heavily in building a stellar team as hub for "the best in India" casual game developers.

The founders design games with geographic accessibility and simple yet compelling gameplay loops, personalized UI and user experience design for domestic players, accessible pricing, and distribution through third-party app stores . The long-term goal is to export the richness of Indian culture worldwide through casual metas, creating the King of India.

Founders include Krishnendu Mukherjee, former Head of Game Design at MPL and Senior Product Manager at Zynga; Rahul Daga, former chief product officer at Zynga and former country manager at m56 Studios; and Rahul Shekhar, former Head of Engineering at m56 Studios.

"We thought about the idea of ​​creating a game studio that caters to the Indian audience and the central problem we mutually identified was that while current mainstream casual games (such as Candy Crush) are very high quality, they haven't been able to fully unlock an Indian player base due to a lack of cultural resonance,” Mukherjee said in a statement. lack of participation in Indian gamer monetization. With over five billion downloads, India is one of the largest casual game download markets. We believe that with the right themes and geo-specific mechanics, we we will be able to drive the adoption and monetization of casual games in India."

The founders have collectively delivered and operated over 10 games and managed titles with earnings in excess of $100 million.

"According to our recently released India State of Gaming 2022 report, 80% of gamers show a strong propensity to play games based on Indian IP," said Justin Shriram Keeling, founding general partner of Lumikai, in a statement. communicated. “We believe culture-themed casual games have the potential to unlock massive disruption in the gaming space in India. We are thrilled to partner with Giga Fun Studios at an early stage and look forward to supporting them with our deep gaming expertise and network in their mission to create a match3 engine that will allow them to create high quality games, especially designed with geo-specific mechanics, localized gameplay loops, unique distribution and India-first monetization."

Mukherjee said in an email to GamesBeat that the current financial environment is difficult to raise capital, especially for a start-up company.

He said the company needed to be "more detailed and meticulous about our value proposition to players and our understanding of the Indian player base. We had very productive discussions with Lumikai Ventures and found a alignment in our vision of the market."

So did the association with Fireside Ventures, which brought more institutional investors to join the round. As for the inspiration for the company, Mukherjee said the company had two ideas in the local market.

“First, there were localized experiences that still provided overall game quality. proved wrong with the amount of money Indians were paying for mid-core games.That was central to our thesis, that the Indian gamer will pay for the right kind of content and the playbook for that doesn't exist not today. This prompted us to focus on designing local experiences by keeping the Indian player at its center.

The company has six employees in Bangalore.

Shriram Keeling said in an email: "Despite the overall down cycle we are seeing in late-stage investments and public markets, the competition for experienced and ambitious early-stage gaming founders is still fierce. We are honored that Krish and the team have chosen to partner with Lumikai as they embark on the exploration of this exciting white space."

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