All-Star Games (formerly Deftouch), a Bangalore, India-based game development company, has raised $1.5m in a Pre-Series A round funding led by Indian VC fund Lumikai.
Play Ventures also participated in the funding round. Play Ventures is an investment firm based in both Singapore and Finland.
Founded by co-founded Ninad Bhagwat and Keshav Sunder, All-Star Games mainly develops sports titles for iOS and Android devices. Until recently, the studio releases two cricket games.
The studio’s upcoming new game, All-Star Cricket, is currently in the development stage. Cricket is rated to be the second most popular sport in the world, with about 2.5 billion followers worldwide, with a billion of them in India alone.
“We’re buzzing to work alongside Lumikai fund. Their deep sector experience and strategic support will position us at the top of the game for the next part of our journey. Together with Harri (Manninen) and Henric (Suuronen) at Play Ventures, it’s an absolutely dream combination for the studio,” said Ninad Bhagwat, CEO, and co-founder of All-Star Games.
Following the round funding Justin Keeling, general partner at Lumikai, in a statement, said, “Our investment in All-Star represents the conflux of two massive white spaces. Deeper mid-core gaming for India’s 400 million gamers, and the potential to build a next-generation, world-class cricket gaming franchise with true mass appeal.”
“Domestic mid-core gaming is a massive white space in India. Global developers like Supercell and PUBG have seen massive Indian usage, but the domestic market has broadly underestimated the sophistication of Indian gamers. Indians want games that resonate culturally,” commented Keeling in an email.
“The All-Star Games team have had huge success with their first two cricket games and have an ambitious roadmap for building the defining Indian mid-core IP.”
Play Ventures was founded by Harri Manninen and Henric Suuronen, and the duo regarded as among the most experienced early-stage gaming investors globally. This is the first-ever investment in the game development scene in India.
Lumikai was established in 2020 with the ambition to develop India’s ever-growing game development industry. The same year, Lumikai committed a $1 million seed investment in Bangalore-based game studio Bombay Play.
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