My Funding Picks For Last Week (W27)
Every Monday, I sit with my team to review the funding activity of the previous week. From that list, I pick out three companies that I would have loved to invest in or find founders that are doing similar things. Click here to know about my rationale behind this weekly exercise.
As we enter the final days of unlocking v1.0, VCs are starting to loosen their tightly guarded pockets. As an ecosystem, we are continually maintaining the 2 deals a day average, but this time 14 startups raised $65 million – double the amount of moolah raised last week!
Out of the 14 deals, 11 were in the early-stage rounds (compared to 11 last week), which made the cut for my weekly analysis. After sifting through the news (aggregated from Tracxn, Inc42, and YourStory), I pick these two as my favorite funding news from last week!
Name: Bombay Play
Amount Raised: $1.5m from Leo Capital and Ramakant Sharma
What does Bombay Play do?
Edited from Traxcn: Bombay Play is a game development company specializing in casino games. Some of the games developed by the company are Card Party, Pokemon Tower Battle, and Twenty Nine. Bombay Play develops games for Android and iOS platforms and generates revenue through advertisements and in-app purchases.
Why do I like Bombay Play?
The COVID lockdown provided the gaming sector with the right ingredients for massive user growth. Low-cost internet access at a reasonable speed and people stuck at home with little to no avenue for social interactions. Therefore simple games that do can work on inexpensive devices with minimal processing speeds can rule the roost. It isn’t a surprise that Ludo King has seen their MAUs break the 1.5m barrier!
I have learned a lot about the gaming sector through my investment in Rolocule Games and Kabaddi Adda. But I am confident that social distancing norms will cause permanent changes in user behavior, encouraging more virtual social behavior. If I am right, gaming companies like Bombay Play will be laughing their way to the bank!
Name: NextBillionAI
Amount Raised: $7m from Lightspeed Venture and Falcon Edge.
What does NextBillionAI do?
Edited from Traxcn: Nextbillion.ai offers a wide range of AI-powered hyperlocal solutions, from business mapping to data management.
Why do I like NextBillionAI?
NextBillion.ai is a company that aggregates data from the half a billion Indians who have gone digital over the last 5 years. As of December 2019, India has 450mn smartphone users, so there’s a lot of data getting collected. NextBillion.ai is trying to make sense of all that data providing actionable data for businesses.
