My11Circle onboard Sourav Ganguly to give Cricket Fans chance of a Lifetime to Engage and Play

With an objective to give every cricket fan the best experience of fantasy cricket in India, My11Circle, one of India’s best fantasy cricket platforms, recently brought ex-cricketer and former Indian team Captain Sourav Ganguly onboard as its brand ambassador. Proving to be a valuable addition to the My11Circle fraternity, the renowned cricket player is helping Play Games scale up significantly. Sourav Ganguly will also announce and felicitate the winners of the World Cup fantasy league challenge ‘Beat the Expert’ along with having a meet-and-greet session with the top 50winners.

A product of Play Games24x7 Pvt. Ltd., a pioneer and leading player in the Indian online and mobile gaming space, My11Circle gives cricket fans the platform to put their knowledge and skills to test. The players form their own teams and earn points as per the collective performanceof the team players, with those having the maximum points winning the cash rewards.

Adding to the thrill, registered players can also play with Sourav Ganguly, fondly called ‘Dada’, at a competitive level on My11Circle and win 5 times more cash rewards, amidst the limitless possibilities of the digital world. For instance, in the recentWorld Cup fantasy league challenge, the league winner of the ‘Beat the Expert’ contest Tufan Ghosh from Birbhum, West Bengal, took the mega prize money of INR 1 crore home, whereas the first runner-up Maidul Ali secured INR 25 lakhs.

My11Circle has managed to get over 4 million installs post launch of the platform earlier this year with over 2 million installs during the world cup alone. Over 4 million teams competed with Sourav Ganguly’s team during the world cup as part of the special league “Beat The Expert”.

At the winner felicitation press event, Sourav Ganguly said, “Being a part of My11Circle has been an exciting journey so far. The levels of engagement brought about in this game have made me feel very involved, and I believe that the rest of the players on the platform enjoy the game just as thoroughly. I had a great time participating in the contest and I would like to heartily congratulate all the winners of this fantasy tournament."

Acknowledging the success, Saroj Panigrahi, Vice-President & Avik Das Kanungo, Brand Head from My11Circle remarked, “Taking fantasy cricket to the next level we are the only platform where one can play with the champions of the great game in real time.It is really heartening to see how My11Circle has had a great run in this World Cup season. Major credits to this scale-up go to Mr. Sourav Ganguly, who took Indian cricket to new heights during his prime, and is helping us with the same in the digital world now. My11Circle is all about cricketing knowledge, strategizing skills, and most importantly—passion. We are thrilled to have Souravas a part of the My11Circle family, and we hope to continue engaging our users with loads of action and fun in this limitless world of online fantasy games.”

Since its inception in 2009, Play Games24x7 has been at the forefront of online gaming in India and has succeeded in being India’s highest-grossing mobile gaming business with its six games. The company hasalready seen key investments such as that from Tiger Global Management, a leading US-based technology-focused hedge fund, in the past. But launching ‘Fantasy Cricket’ on My11Circle this year and bringing Sourav Ganguly onboard has enabled the company to witness a steady scale-up. My11Circle received tremendous traction during the World Cup season with over 2 million registrations and downloads within a span of 45 days. Moreover, there has been no decline in the platform’s popularity post the World Cup season. Armed with such positive developments, Play Games24x7 is set to shape the realm of online fantasy games in India while providing a personalized gameplay experience to all.

Sourav Ganguly Invests in Mumbai Based Entertainment Company Flickstree

Indian cricketing legend and former captain Sourav Ganguly has made his very first foray in the startup world by investing in Mumbai based entertainment company, Flickstree.

Flickstree is a tech-entertainment company, started by Saurabh Singh, Rahul Jain and Nagender Sangra in 2014, officially launching their platform in August 2016.

Flickstree is India’s first Personal Video Magazine. It is a curated and personalized Video Platform, for free-to-watch videos. Flickstree compiles these free-to-watch online videos from social networks, media sites, and blogs and then creates a custom user video feed. The AI based on patent pending technology, allows Flickstree to effectively curate and personalize the experience for its users.

“Digital is the future of India across all fields. And going by the country’s Digital India vision, I decided to invest in Flickstree because they’re at the forefront of innovative cutting edge technology and have great founders to realize their vision”, said Sourav Ganguly. He also said, “Different users have different passions. Flickstree helps users follow their passion and create their personal video magazine. Such a model has the potential to change the way videos are consumed.”

Flickstree has bucketed 20+ video categories that users can currently follow, and they are constantly adding more categories on the platform. Ganguly continued, "Users today have interests in various fields. While currently users can create only a single video magazine on Flickstree based on their interests, going forward I have asked the founders to enable users create multiple such magazines that users can create and enjoy.”

Saurabh Singh, CEO, Flickstree said, “We are delighted to have Sourav Ganguly on-board as a partner, investor and a catalyst who really believes in our idea”. He also said, “India is witnessing video boom and with the launch of 4G, suddenly it has exploded further. With so many content producers creating quality content, it becomes difficult for users to discover videos across multiple platforms. Flickstree is trying to organize video content from the free web for users.”

Flickstree has raised a seed round Rs 3 Crore capital from investors like Venture Catalysts, Anirban Aditya & Ankit Aditya (Aditya Group, Kolkata) and Moksh Sports Ventures, along with Sourav Ganguly. Venture Catalysts is leading the round.

“The free-to-watch video space is extremely fragmented, with multiple players creating tons of video content. These videos are published exclusively on separate platforms – a user who has interest in several categories cannot install multiple apps and keep browsing them separately, also owing to limited phone storage. This leads to poor video discovery. Flickstree is trying to solve this consumer problem”, said Mr. Satadru Dutta, co-founder Moksh Sports Ventures and Business Development Consultant to Flickstree, who was instrumental in bringing Sourav Ganguly and Aditya Group on board. “Dada has always backed youngsters and accepted new challenges”, concluded Satadru Dutta.

Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder and President Venture Catalysts, said, “Flickstree’s core technology is an AI powered video recognition technology that watches videos in-screen like human beings. The patent pending technology generates keywords for each video and gathers video popularity, sentiment and engagements on Internet. This helps the company get best videos from multiple platforms. It also helps them personalize these videos for users.”

Flickstree is also a Facebook backed company via their FBStart program. Currently with 20+ video categories, users can follow & create an interesting video magazine on Flickstree.

“Video Industry is booming and will only explode further. A player like Flickstree can potentially change the way videos are consumed by users all over the world”, says Anirban Aditya, Chairman Aditya Group.

“There is something for every user type, with carefully chosen video categories on Flickstree. Everyone should give it a try”, says Sourav Ganguly.