MUMBAI: WinZO, a gaming and entertainment platform, on Friday said it has raised $65 million in a Series C funding round, led by California-based Griffin Gaming Partners, taking the total capital raised by the company to $90 million. This is Griffin's first ever investment in India.
WinZO's latest fund raise comes eight months after it raised its Series B round from returning investors Makers Fund, Courtside Ventures, and Steve Pagliuca, co-chairman of Bain Capital.
Phil Sanderson, co-founder, Griffin Gaming Partners, will join WinZO’s board of directors.
"Griffin's incredible experience and precious insights across the global media & entertainment landscape shall be valuable as we continue to disrupt the Indian gaming ecosystem. With this raise, we plan to grow much faster and become an even more lovable product for our consumers. WinZO is poised and strategically well positioned to be one of the first 'Made in India' products that will rule the world in coming years," said Paavan Nanda, co-founder, WinZO.
With focus on competitive multiplayer gaming experiences, WinZO’s aims to create a culturally relevant mobile games platform with broad-based adoption. It seeks to position itself at the forefront of Indian gaming culture with an expansive influencer network catering to more than 50 million registered users. The platform is currently offered in 12 languages, unlocking demographics that have historically gone underserved.
The company has grown its revenues tenfold over the last 12 months, and has partnered with over 100 leading game developers to realise the full potential of the Indian mobile gaming market through in-game integration of WinZO’s social gaming framework.
"Winzo is led by best-in-class management with an extraordinary product vision. We saw in WinZO’s games incredible retention and monetization metrics we believe set the company up for continued explosive growth and are proud to support the team on the journey, making our first ever investment in India” said Nick Tuosto, co-founder, Griffin Gaming Partners, and managing director and head of Gaming at LionTree.
