Mobile Premier League Introduces Poker Academy

Some of India's top professional poker players and streamers like Dhaval Mudgal, Siddharth Karia, Parth Jain, Aniruddha Joshi and more will share lessons, tactics and tips to help emerging poker players master skills.

The brand also announced the launch of India Poker Festival, one of the largest online poker tournaments in India, scheduled between May 26 and June 5.

Mobile Premier League (MPL), one of the world's leading mobile eSports platforms, has introduced Poker Academy jointly with some of India's top poker professionals to help aspiring gamers hone their skills.

Poker, as a skill-based game, requires analytical thinking, knowledge of math, and a knack to read people. The Academy, through a series of unique content properties, aims to deconstruct all these aspects in an accessible manner and help aspiring poker players learn the techniques, and enhance their strategy and thinking, while ensuring skill-based gameplay in the long term.

MPL also announced the launch of India Poker Festival, an online event that would offer a best-in-class gaming experience to all kinds of poker players across different tournament formats. The 11-day event, from May 26th through June 5th, will see thousands of players from across the nation participating. MPL will also run contests, discount offers on social media and provide free tickets for the tournament as prizes.

Worldwide, there are over 100 million people who play poker. With tech advancements, enabling transparency and fairplay, especially online poker on mobile apps, many new players have started playing poker, across the world. In India too, the sport has attracted a lot of new players in recent years. The number of tournaments has also increased. Poker, along with games like Bridge, Chess and Scrabble, is a part of the Mind Sports Olympiad, the global event for games of mental skill and mind sports.

Commenting on the launch of MPL Poker Academy, Namratha Swamy, Country Head - India, MPL said, "Success in a game of poker is a product of hard work and skill. We strongly believe that with MPL Poker Academy and its myriad learning tools and features, we can create a conducive environment where people can learn from experts and connect with other like-minded players. Through this initiative, we also aim to clear any misconceptions that people have about the game."

As part of the Academy, MPL will curate beginner, intermediate and advanced levels of content that cater to all types of gamers. Professional poker players such as Parth Jain, Dhaval Mudgal, Siddharth Karia, Aniruddha Joshi and others have joined hands with MPL to create short, snackable videos to make learning poker accessible to people. This includes commentary on the various aspects of poker including structure of a game, best and worst hands, common poker mistakes and how to avoid them, setting financial limits, playing against different types of opponents, etc. to help people get started on their poker journey.

Commenting on the launch, Siddharth Karia, said, "Like in other competitive sports, developing strategies and executing them under pressure is what excites me the most about poker. I am excited about the Indian Poker Festival. I believe it will be a great platform for players to leverage their skills, compete against the best and earn recognition."

Final Table Replay, a weekly video series, will see poker streamers walk through final table live action of the biggest tournaments hosted on the MPL platform. This will help players view all cards on a poker table and learn along as experts analyze all the hands and the decisions taken by players during the game.

MPL Poker Academy is accessible to gamers on MPL's app, social media platforms as well as well-known poker communities like India Poker Players' Association (IPPA), Poker Guru, Gutshot, among others.

About MPL

MPL is the world's leading mobile eSports platform that allows users to participate in paid competitions across 60+ games in multiple categories, including mobile games, daily fantasy sports, quizzing, and board games. Founded in 2018, MPL hosts hundreds of millions of tournaments a month and is trusted by over 90 million registered users across India, Indonesia, Europe, and the U.S.

To learn more about Mobile Premier League, please visit www.mpl.live.

Mobile Premier League Launches Gaming Studios "Mayhem Studios"

MPL’s first-ever gaming studio to develop AAA titles for India and global markets

Mobile Premier League (MPL), one of the world’s leading mobile eSports platforms, has launched a world-class gaming studio called Mayhem Studios to step up the development of AAA mobile games for domestic and global markets.

Mayhem Studios, which will operate as a subsidiary of MPL, aims to harness the strength of India’s talented game developer community and produce high quality games. The Studio will have a team of top-notch professionals in the area of animation, art, cinematics, design, engineering, UI and UX game design and game production.

Speaking on the launch of the studio, Sai Srinivas, Co-founder and CEO, MPL, said: “India has the potential to become a gaming hub of the world. It is imperative to create requisite infrastructure for making world-class games to help achieve the country’s vision to make the Indian digital gaming sector a world leader. Mayhem Studios launch is our first contribution towards achieving this vision”.

Headquartered in India’s tech capital, Mayhem Studios will be India’s first AAA gaming studio. Mayhem Studios will work on multiple esports and other game titles to meet an ever-increasing demand due to the gaming boom across India and other markets. Ojas Vipat will be the CEO of Mayhem Studios.

“Mayhem Studios will be focused on developing games that all gamers can relate to and enjoy the best-in-class gaming experience. Setting up such a state-of-the-art studio is the first major step towards development of many AAA mobile game titles from India for the global markets and we are on the right track. ” said Ojas Vipat, CEO Mayhem Studios.

MPL is the world's leading mobile eSports platform that allows users to participate in paid competitions across 60+ games in multiple categories, including mobile games, daily fantasy sports, quizzing, and board games. Founded in 2018, MPL hosts hundreds of millions of tournaments a month and is trusted by over 90 million registered users across India, Indonesia, Europe, and the U.S.

To learn more about Mobile Premier League, please visit www.mpl.live.

MPL Announces College Premier League - India’s Biggest College E-Sports Festival

Students from more than 100 select colleges across the country will compete for a Rs 1 crore prize and scholarship pool

National, November 26, 2020: Mobile Premier League, India's largest esports and mobile gaming platform, today announced the launch of College Premier League (CPL) - India's Biggest College Mobile Gaming Festival. The League is India's biggest competitive online mobile gaming and Esports championship for college students. As a part of this initiative, students will actively compete to win scholarships and cash prizes both at an individual level as well as at the institutional level, with a total value of Rs 1 Crore. (Terms and Conditions apply.) CPL is completely free for college students to participate in and has no entry fee.

Over the duration of the College Premier League, which begins on November 27, students from across the country will contend for top honours across a wide range of mobile games such as World Cricket Championship, Chess, Pool and Rogue Heist. The games were carefully chosen based on their interest and popularity among the students, as well as those that appeal to both regular and casual gamers. Competing colleges will be awarded points on the basis of their performance, which will see them through intra-college, regional, zonal, and national rounds. The finalists will get to livestream their games along with influencers such as comedian Tanmay Bhat on MPL's social media channels potentially reaching an audience of over two million.

In a country with approximately 300 million gamers, India is one of the top five global gaming markets, making it rife with opportunities to build an Esports ecosystem at the collegiate level. Furthermore, through the College Premier League, MPL aims to identify, and nurture budding Esports talents in India.

Commenting on the launch of the College Premier League, Sai Srinivas, Co-founder and CEO, MPL, said, "Over the last few months, we have seen a tremendous boost in online gaming. Not just as a means of keeping audiences entertained, but also as a viable career option. The industry is growing at a fast pace with several options being created for players to go pro, supported by developers, marketing professionals, and more. Through the College Premier League, we are hopeful of creating awareness about these opportunities and their potential."

As the go-to platform for gamers and developers, MPL has on-boarded over 50 games on its platform since its inception in 2018. Having partnered with several independent as well as established game developers, MPL has since opened up a new revenue stream for them to monetise their skills. Additionally, the College Premier League is also a part of MPL's growth programmes to reach a cross section of users, following their successful associations with Indian and international professional sports leagues.

About Mobile Premier League (MPL) 

Founded in 2018, MPL is India's largest esports and mobile gaming platform. It has grown to over 50-plus games and 6 crore users, including titles like World Cricket Championship. MPL also has multiple gaming studios and developers as partners to publish their games on its platform. MPL's app is available on both Android and iOS. The company was founded by Sai Srinivas and Shubham Malhotra, who earlier co-founded Creo, a Mobile Phone startup that was acquired. MPL is currently present in India and Indonesia, with offices in Bengaluru, Jakarta, and Pune, and with a personnel strength of over 300.

MPL Launches India's 1st Indigenous Shooter Game Rogue Heist

India's largest mobile gaming platform Mobile Premier League (MPL) has partnered with Mumbai-based game developer Lifelike Studios to launch Rogue Heist, India's first indigenous multi-player online shooter game exclusively on the MPL app, ahead of other platforms. Rogue Heist is developed by Lifelike Studios and backed by Bollywood Actor and Producer Arbaaz Khan and Time2play Gaming Studios.

Rogue Heist is one of the first multi-player Esports on the MPL platform and will see users face off against each other, with cash prizes for grabs for each battle and tournament. MPL currently has over 40 games on its platform.

The idea behind Rogue Heist is to create a unique experience of a heist, which is intense, engaging, and fun in a truly competitive real-time multi-player environment.

The game mode on MPL is Rogue Heist-BRAWL - a super fast, action-packed Esport mode. Each game lasts only seven minutes in which 10 players are pitted against each other to steal the maximum amount of money. Here, the players get the real feel of a heist, yet come out top gainers based on their individual performance. Based on the leaderboard, top players will win cash prizes on MPL, making it a virtual cash heist with real money for takes.

Commenting on the launch, Shubh Malhotra, Co-founder, Mobile Premier League, said, "Rogue Heist is a very exciting and engaging game and we are glad that it is launching exclusively on MPL, even before the Google Play Store. The graphics, gameplay, and the overall experience is top notch and our users are going to have the time of their lives, participating in a virtual cash heist. Lifelike Studios has done a great job optimising the game for our platform and we look forward to working with them to take Esports to all corners of the country."

"MPL has been our first choice for collaboration from the beginning. With the opportunity of exclusively launching on MPL (for real money awards), I am happy that we overcame many challenges by deep collaboration between both our teams. The biggest challenge was to reduce the size of the game from 1.5 GB to 450 MB for MPL users while still being able to provide the true Rogue Heist experience. As this is a live game, we plan on providing constant updates to keep MPL users engaged," said Ashish Beuria, CEO, Lifelike Studios.

"Rogue Heist will be a game changer, which is made in India. Our team is really excited and happy to launch the Esports version of Rogue Heist on MPL, as it gives us the opportunity to engage with their massive playerbase and geographical reach all over India and Indonesia, while at the same time providing an exciting, edge-of-the-seat shooting game experience to MPL players," said Bollywood Actor and Producer Arbaaz Khan.

Founded in 2018, MPL is India's largest Mobile Gaming and Esports platform. It has grown to over 40 million registered users and currently has over 40 games, including titles like FreeFire and World Cricket Championship. MPL also has multiple gaming studios and developers as partners to publish their games on its platform. MPL's app is available on both Android and iOS.

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Mobile Premier League Acquires Pune based Crevise Technologies

With in a month after its launch in Indonesia, Mobile Premier League (MPL), s growing mobile eSports Platform in India today, announced its acquisition of Crevise Technologies Private Limited, a Pune based start-up focused on providing end-to-end product engineering consultation. Crevise Technologies is a three-year-old start-up with expertise in DevOps, Machine Learning and Full Stack Development. This marks Mobile Premier League’s first acquisition in the country since the launch of the company in September 2018.

The deal consists of a combination of cash and equity and is more in the nature of an acquihire. Mukta Apahale and Atul Aphale, who founded Crevise Technologies in 2016, will lead the 10-member MPL team from Pune. MPL and Crevise Technologies have already collaborated in the past with the objective of improving performance and operational efficiency. Through the acquisition, MPL aims to utilize Crevise’s experience in DevOps and reliability engineering to make the platform more robust, agile, and reliable for its users.

Shubham Malhotra, Co-Founder and COO of Mobile Premier League on the acquisition “As a fast-moving company, we are in a continuous deployment mode. We needed a strong team of DevOps engineers to move the delivery capacity up swiftly. Before deciding to bring Crevise Technologies onboard as a part of the MPL team we had a great stint working with them as a client partner. While working with them, we also noticed synergies in work ethics, team values, and cultural fitment, that led us to move towards this acquisition. The team brings their rich end-to-end product engineering capabilities to the table and we are excited to build MPL together.”

“eSports is becoming a mass market phenomenon in India and MPL is spearheading it. We have an amazing opportunity to manage engineering reliability for MPL. Together MPL and Crevise can deliver a better experience to our end customers by supporting the engineering side of MPL’s exponential growth and scale.” said Mukta, Founder and CEO of Crevise Technologies.

MPL recently announced the Series A investment of USD 35.5 Million, led by Sequoia India, Times Internet, and GoVentures with participation from other investors including RTP Global, BeeNext, Base Ventures, and Venture Highway. The funds will enable the seven-month-old mobile gaming platform to invest in product and user growth in India. MPL is currently one of the Playstore's top ranking apps across categories with over 25 million installs making it the fastest growing app in India.

Sequoia-backed Mobile Premier League (MPL) Forays into the Southeast Asia market with Indonesia Launch

Mobile Premier League (MPL), the fastest growing mobile eSports Platform in India has today announced its foray into the Southeast Asia market with the launch in Indonesia. MPL is currently one of the Playstore's top ranking apps across categories with over 25 million installs making it the fastest growing app in India.

MPL, which raised $35.5 Mn funding from Sequoia India and others in last month, is the leader in the competitive mobile gaming space where users get to participate in a range of games and compete against over tens of thousands of players in tournaments. Users can access several mobile games on the platform, which hosts both tournament and 1v1 style player formats.

“MPL revolutionized the old concept of arcade centers and big arcade machines, presenting it in an easily accessible platform for today's user and their beloved smartphones,” said Joe Wadakethalakal, CEO- Indonesia, Mobile Premier League. “Mobile gaming has incredible potential in Indonesia and a lot of room to grow. MPL’s value proposition of providing a platform for users to compete with each other across a variety of games is unique and pioneering and will contribute positively to the growing local eSports industry” he added.

MPL’s foray into Indonesia comes at an interesting time as eSports becomes official addition to the SEA Games 2019 and upcoming Asian Games 2022, Indonesia is increasingly committed to realizing it eSports potential.

"We are excited by the tremendous growth potential the Southeast Asia market has shown in the past couple of years. The timing couldn’t have been better for us to expand our platform to Indonesia. As a holistic mobile gaming platform, we will continue to focus on creating platform experience based on the unique preferences of gamers in Indonesia." said Sai Srinivas Kiran G, Co-Founder and Group CEO, Mobile Premier League.

Southeast Asia is the fastest growing region in the world for the gaming industry. Increasing internet penetration and rising disposable income have given rise to the rapid development of mobile games. Southeast Asia will soon become the next battlefield for mobile gaming companies from all corners of the globe.

eSports Platform Mobile Premier League Raises $35.5 Mn from Sequoia India, Times Internet, Other

Mobile Premier League (MPL), the fastest growing mobile eSports Platform in India today, announced a Series A investment of USD 35.5 Million, led by Sequoia India, Times Internet, and GoVentures with participation from other investors including RTP Global, BeeNext, Base Growth, and Venture Highway. The funds will enable the newly launched mobile gaming platform to invest in product and user growth in India.

“Our goal is to build India's largest Mobile eSports Platform which is accessible to all. MPL today provides users access to all formats and types of competitive games. Like with everything else, Competitive Gaming in India will be mobile first and MPL wants to be the platform of choice for the user. In the 7 months since launch, the user love we have received is testimony to that. We are thankful and excited to have investors who share the same bold vision.” said Sai Srinivas Kiran G, Co-Founder and CEO of Mobile Premier League.

“Sequoia India is very happy to back Sai and Shubh a second time, and believe solidly in their vision of creating the largest esports platform for India and other emerging markets,'' said Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital (India) Singapore. “We’re thrilled with the early progress at MPL. With their industry leading growth and engagement metrics, MPL has the potential to become a major mobile internet company in India.” he added.

MPL is currently one of the Playstore's top ranking apps across categories with over 25 million installs making it the fastest growing app in India. A large part of the platform’s success can be attributed to its highly engaging and social gaming content.

“MPL has captured the imagination of gamers on smartphones like no other platform out there. Skill based competitive casual games are highly engaging social experiences, and we believe MPL will be a leader in this category globally” said Miten Sampat, VP Corp Dev, Times Internet.

Mobile eSports is becoming popular by the day and MPL aims to break barriers of access to make mobile gaming a household sport across the country.

Speaking on the association Samir Sood, Founder, Venture Highway said “E-gaming has witnessed an exponential growth in India with the rapid penetration of digital infrastructure. In a short timeframe, MPL has shown tremendous growth, capturing a sizeable chunk of this market. We are excited to partner with MPL, in its vision of becoming the go-to-platform for mobile gamers, not just across the country, but beyond.”