The seed-stage funding will support the disruption of real money gaming by bringing together the experience of both reality TV and live video gaming on a single platform
Underscoring its commitment to supporting entrepreneurial innovation, 9Unicorns - India's first accelerator VC, has recently made a seed investment in Tamasha.live, an influencer-led, live social gaming platform. 9Unicorns took an early bet in the company alongside Kunal Bahl (Co-founder and CEO - Snapdeal) & Rohit Bansal of Titan Capital and First Cheque. The INR 2.5 Crores funding round also saw participation from several other eminent investors such as PointOne Capital, Maninder Gulati (Global Chief Strategy Officer - OYO Rooms), Ramakant Sharma (Co-Founder - LivSpace), Ankit Khandelwal (Co-Founder - Gromo), and Abhishek Hota (VP - OYO). Other investors who participated in the funding round include Rishabh Kumar (Head UK & Europe - OYO), and Aakash Kumar (AVP - Hotstar).
Founded in 2020 by Saurabh Gupta and Siddharth Swarnkar, Tamasha aims to create an engaging and fun-filled platform where the experience of reality TV and online gaming is fused to give the participants the best of both worlds. New-age influencers and content creators will host the games that will have real cash prizes for winners at the cost of a small entry fee. The availability of their favourite stars and multiple gaming contests ensure that there is no scope of boredom or lack of choices for the players. At the same time, creators get the opportunity to engage with their audience in a unique manner while monetizing their content instantly.
Speaking on the investment, Saurabh, Co-founder and CEO – Tamasha, said, "As India's first influencer-led live real money gaming platform, Tamasha aims to disrupt the booming social gaming industry. We aim to give, the new generation of content creators, the power to entertain their fans through live games and also monetize it effectively in new and unique ways; and the backing of leading investors such as 9Unicorns will help us realise that vision."
Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder & Managing Director – 9Unicorns, commented on the investment, "Besides its solid offering, the vision and dedication of Tamasha's founding team clinched the deal for us. Their strategies are aligned with the needs and requirements of this emerging market and the space that they are addressing is ripe for disruption. We are pleased to support a dynamic startup such as theirs and will offer support to their continued growth and success."
"We at Titan quite liked the approach of the Tamasha team to leverage creators' showmanship to help them monetize through Real Money Gaming. This is really more engaging form of gaming and entertainment" said Mr. Bipin Shah, Partner - Titan Capital
Siddharth, Co-founder and CPO – Tamasha, added, "With the latest funding round, we plan to build a rockstar team with cross-functional expertise. We will invest in building a strong product and grow our initial user base."
Kushal Bhagia, CEO – FirstCheque.vc quoted, "Tamasha is playing on two booming trends on the Indian internet - Real Money gaming and Influencers! Saurabh and Siddharth's unique insight on designing engaging gaming and entertaining experiences for the Indian user make Tamasha a very exciting company to back!"Tamasha envisions revolutionizing the online gaming industry by leveraging its one-of-a-kind platform focused wholly on enhancing the live user experience and engagement. Addressing a Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) of $5.6 Billion in 2021 in India, the brand's innovative offering is well-equipped to disrupt this high-value space.
About 9Unicorns
9Unicorns is India's First Accelerator VC. It provides acceleration support & seed funding to early-stage startups. 9Unicorns provides funding upto $100K per startup in the first round, and may invest further $500K-$2Mn in successive rounds with its co-investors. From idea stage to angel stage, it supports startups across various themes & sectors.
9Unicorns' strength & focus is on a hands-on support ecosystem for startups, beyond capital. 9Unicorns, besides investment, opens doors to the startups for access to a wide network of successful founders, category-leaders, CXOs of large corporations, seasoned angel investors & partners of global VC funds. Every portfolio company receives an acceleration support for 3 months & post-investment support of 18 months.
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