Flipkart, one of the largest e-commerce firms in India, is looking to grow its presence in the gaming market and has decided to acquire the mobile gaming startup Mech Mocha. The deal, worth an undisclosed amount, will see the Mech Mocha gaming team joining Flipkart as the e-commerce giant “continues to focus on developing new and innovative formats to engage with users on its platform”.
“At Flipkart, we are focused on providing consumers with an opportunity to access great products and content while giving them an engaging experience. We see many first-time e-commerce users come online through formats such as video and games, as they build familiarity with the medium,” said Prakash Sikaria, Vice-President at Flipkart.
He added, “Our observations of Flipkart GameZone, reflect this trend as we see a strong correlation between casual gamers becoming early shoppers on Flipkart for their digital journey. Through this transaction, we will strengthen our capabilities in the gaming domain with access to Mech Mocha’s IP, games and talented team that will help us accelerate our efforts in this space.”
Mech Mocha, founded by Arpita Kapoor and Mohit Rangaraju in 2014, is a mobile gaming startup that is backed by some well-known investors like Accel Partners, Blume Ventures and Shunwei Capital. Flipkart too is an early investor in Mech Mocha, having participated in the gaming startup’s $1 million seed round in 2015.
The Bangalore-based gaming firm runs ‘Hello Play’, the first live-social gaming platform of India which has over 5 million downloads on Google Play Store and offers multiplayer games such as Ludo, Carrom, Snakes & Ladder and Cricket. Players can play any games with their friends while on an in-app video chat with them.
Flipkart Gamezone is a portal launched by the e-commerce giant for its platform, allowing users to participate in games (such as quizzes), to win various prizes like Bluetooth speakers, earphones, etc. The company conducts one game session everyday on Gamezone with different prizes. With this deal, the Mech Mocha team will join Flipkart and will help grow the company’s gaming effort under Prakash Sikaria’s leadership.
Arpita Kapoor, co-founder & CEO of Mech Mocha, said, “With Vocal for Local being the focus for digital apps across the nation, this strategic backing of Flipkart provides us an opportunity to be part of a larger ecosystem that helps us create unique social gaming experiences for Indian users. We look forward to being a part of the Flipkart ecosystem and leveraging the Flipkart Cloud Platform, Super Coins, Reward store and Flipkart Ads platform to strengthen the platform for our users.”
