Creo Founders' E-Sports Platform Mobile Premier League Raises $5 Million

Bangalore-based Galactus Funware Technology Private Limited, which runs and owns e-sports platform Mobile Premier League (MPL), has raised US$5 million (~ Rs 36.5 crore) in a Series A round of funding from undisclosed investors that include one or more angel investors, reported VCCircle.

Notably, the e-sports platform was founded in May this year by founders of CREO -- Sai Srinivas Kiran Garimella and Shubham Malhotra, which was acquired by Hike in August last year. CREO used to design, develops and sell consumer electronics as well as a licensed operating systems (on top of Androd OS) called Fuel OS. Its hardware products include the HDMI streaming media dongle Teewe and the smartphone Mark 1 that operates on its Fuel OS.

MPL, which claims to be the largest real-money mobile e-sports platform in the world, will use the freshly raised capital to expand operations and build its product.

The e-sports platform runs a gaming platform where users compete in live tournaments for skill-based mobile games to win money. Once the results are announced for a tournament, winners can cash out immediately with Paytm, UPI or bank transfer, according to the information on company’s website.

It recently went live on Google Play for Android users.

As withdrawals on MPL involve transfer of money to users' bank/wallet account, and hence PAN & Aadhaar Card is a mandatory requirement as a proof of identity for MPL users.

Of late, e-sports gaming is picking up popularity in India and gaining attention of investors as well. Recently an another Indian e-Sports gaming startup GamingMonk had raised ₹4 crore in funding round led by Japan-based Incubate Fund, and Google's Rajan Anandan.

At the same time, global sports tech fund, ADvantage, which runs by family Adidas founder, had too recently announced that it is looking out for gaming and e-sports startups in India for investment opportunities.

According to data by Newzoo, India’s current revenue from e-sports activities comes to around $800 million and is expected to increase by five-fold by 2021.

Late last month, MultiFit Wellness Private Limited, a functional fitness studio brand, had announced India’s first Gym chain driven fitness incubator program, which would focus on startups and ideas in sports, fitness, wellness and nutrition

Hike Acquires Bengaluru-based Startup Creo

Hike Messenger, a cross-platform instant messaging service for smartphones from India, on Friday announced the acquisition of Bengaluru-based startup Creo, a smartphone and media streaming technology startup Creo.

Notably, Creo was IndianWeb2's pick for 2016's most innovative startups from Bengaluru.

The startup which has, last year, launched its flagship product - Mark 1, an Android-based smartphone device, is founded by Sai Srinivas Kiran G and Shubham Malhotra in December 2013. Hike started associating with Creo as the company became part of a mentoring programme run by Hike CEO and founder Kavin Bharti Mittal (in pic above).



In the past, the startup has also launched hardware products that include streaming media dongles (Teewee) and smartphones.

According to the Hike spokesperson, "The Creo team will begin work on a developer platform to enable third party developers to build services on the Hike platform"

"To build our next product, we need all the focus and good luck we can. Owing to this, we will no longer be making new CREO Mark1 devices or releasing any software updates," announced Creo, on its website.

The company further added - "The Creo customer helpline, the CREO Facebook page and Twitter handles will also be available until 1st March 2018."

The Creo team constitutes over 50 members and what will happen to the team is still to be announced by the companies.

Hike Messenger, which started operation in 2012, has now acquired a user base of over 100 million in January 2016. In August 2016, Hike raised its fourth round of funding of $175 million led by Tencent and Foxconn at a valuation of $1.4 billion, making it the fastest company in the India to attain a valuation of $1 billion.

Today, Hike has over 300 employees spread across two offices in Delhi and Bengaluru.

Top Image - Hike CEO-Founder Kavin Bharti Mittal

Bengaluru-based Media Streaming Device Maker Raises $3 Million, To Launch Proprietary Android-based OS

Creo, a Bangalore based consumer technology company earlier known as Mango Man Consumer Electronics, has raised US$3 million funding from Sequoia India, Beenext Ventures and India Quotient. The young startup is makers of HDMI media streaming device Teewe which has re-branded itself to 'Creo'. The re-branding was announced on day of the launch of its proprietary Android OS on Thursday.

The startup plans to produce smartphones by developing a proprietary Android-based software OS and the smartphone itself.

"The idea of building an Android based operating system for a smartphone stemmed from the realization that in the current market, while hardware is getting better very fast, there is not enough differentiation on the software front. We want to be the ones bridging that gap," said Sai Srinivas, co-founder of CREO.

The startup's flagship product 'Teewe', which was launched in September 2014, is an HDMI Dongle that allows to stream media wirelessly via a smartphone application to television. Ever since Teewe 2 was launched in May 2015, the company claims the product has established itself in over 50,000 households.

Teewe was founded in August 2013 by young engineers - Sai Srinivas Kiran, an IIT-Kanpur graduate and Shubh Malhotra, a BITS Pilani (Goa) graduate. While Srinivas previously did stints with Zynga as a Product Manager and Bharti Soft Bank as the Director of Product. Malhotra was Product Manager in Bharti SoftBank working on technology behind mobile games built out of Tiny Mogul Games studio, a Bangalore based Gaming Studio operated by Bharti SoftBank.

Teewe added torrent streaming functionality through an update in late December 2015.

Bengaluru-based Media Streaming Device Maker Raises $3 Million, To Launch Proprietary Android-based OS

Creo, a Bangalore based consumer technology company earlier known as Mango Man Consumer Electronics, has raised US$3 million funding from Sequoia India, Beenext Ventures and India Quotient. The young startup is makers of HDMI media streaming device Teewe which has re-branded itself to 'Creo'. The re-branding was announced on day of the launch of its proprietary Android OS on Thursday.

The startup plans to produce smartphones by developing a proprietary Android-based software OS and the smartphone itself.

"The idea of building an Android based operating system for a smartphone stemmed from the realization that in the current market, while hardware is getting better very fast, there is not enough differentiation on the software front. We want to be the ones bridging that gap," said Sai Srinivas, co-founder of CREO.

The startup's flagship product 'Teewe', which was launched in September 2014, is an HDMI Dongle that allows to stream media wirelessly via a smartphone application to television. Ever since Teewe 2 was launched in May 2015, the company claims the product has established itself in over 50,000 households.

Teewe was founded in August 2013 by young engineers - Sai Srinivas Kiran, an IIT-Kanpur graduate and Shubh Malhotra, a BITS Pilani (Goa) graduate. While Srinivas previously did stints with Zynga as a Product Manager and Bharti Soft Bank as the Director of Product. Malhotra was Product Manager in Bharti SoftBank working on technology behind mobile games built out of Tiny Mogul Games studio, a Bangalore based Gaming Studio operated by Bharti SoftBank.

Teewe added torrent streaming functionality through an update in late December 2015.