Halaplay a Bengaluru based fantasy gaming startup has raised Rs 9 crore from a serial entrepreneur Milan Ganatra. The founder of Miles Software, Milan Ganatra has made an entry in India’s booming online gaming ecosystem.
Up till now Halaplay have raised funds from two rounds, first in November 2017 an undisclosed seed round and in December 2018 Series A funding of Rs 40 crore.
Milan has invested approximately Rs 9 crore against 6.5 percent equity in the Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) platform which is a subsidiary of the publicly listed Nazara Technologies. A veteran in software technologies and investment, Milan will be seen mentoring the young team of HalaPlay in his investor role.
Starting with the entrepreneurial journey Milan started with Miles Software in 1998 and after two decades he sold it to Ebix Cash in 2018 and took exit from company after that he also launched a fintech startup 1Silver Bullet with an initial investment of $1 million (Rs 7.2 crore)
Additionally, he has set up an investment analytics platform named Finalyca with a funding of $200K, which is a joint venture with portfolio management services firm PMS Bazaar. Milan has also invested an undisclosed amount in school fee financing startup Financepeer.
The online gaming industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent to $2.8 billion by 2022, up from $1.1 billion in 2019, according to a Deloitte India report released in January 2021.
No matter it is expected to suffer losses with IPL suspension this year for an indefinite period due to COVID-19, fantasy gaming has been a growing market in India especially for IPL which has never-ending craze of cricket.
With Nazara IPO seeing stellar listing gains, MPL coming close to becoming a unicorn with the latest $95 million Series D round and the fishing bandwagon of players, online gaming has already taken a hot seat among the investors.
According to Milan he said “India’s online gaming ecosystem has been on consistent growth showing upward trajectory with the market to grow to Rs 18,700 crore by 2022 ”
“With the incredible potential it has shown so far, I felt that it was the right time to make a move. HalaPlay is amongst the top companies in the category which makes it an ideal platform to enter the space with,” he added.