India’s Bombay Play has raised $1 million in seed funding from Lumikai, a firm focused on interactive media that started its first early-stage investment fund in August. Bombay Play is a game studio based in Bangalore that develops games with a social component.
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Lumikai leads seed funding round for Bombay Play
While Lumikai is leading the seed funding round for Bombay Play, Leo Capital and Playco are also investing, the game studio said in a statement. The total amount of capital raised in the funding round is $2.5 million, according to VCcircle. Zynga and Playco co-founder Justin Waldron was added to Bombay Play's board of directors as part of the seed funding round.
The game studio plans to use the seed capital to speed up the development of several of its games, including a number of social games, live games and multiplayer card and strategy board games. Bombay Play will also focus on some of its existing properties, like Card Party, which has been downloaded more than 10 million times. The company is also hiring talent to fill a variety of roles.
India's gaming business set for take-off
India has been brimming with tech startups in recent years, and many of those startups have grown into unicorns with billion-dollar valuations. However, the country has been lagging in the area of gaming. That could change with Lumikai's new gaming fund for India, which was announced in August. Bombay Play is the gaming fund's first investment.
VentureBeat reports that a decade ago, India was home to about 25 gaming companies, according to Newzoo. Now more than 300 gaming firms are based in India, but most are starved for capital. According to Lumikai, about $300 million to $400 million has been invested into Indian gaming companies in recent years, and most of it game within the last two years.
Abhas Saroha and Oliver Jones founded Bombay Play. Jones was previously with Glu Mobile and Zynga before he co-founded Moonfrog Games, which developed one of the most successful card games in India called Teen Patti Gold. Saroha previously worked at Zynga, Moonfrog and Makemytrip.com. Saroha and Jones have worked together for almost 10 years.
