Just a few days after its game PUBG Mobile made its reentry in India as Battlegrounds Mobile India, it was found that Krafton might be sending user data to servers in China, despite severing ties with Tencent. However, India is too big a market for the South Korean game maker to lose, and to solidify its presence in the country, it is looking at another route-investment. Krafton has invested in seed funding of game streaming platform Loco, helping it raise a massive sum of $9Mn.
The round, led by Krafton and interactive media fund Lumikai, saw participation from Hashed, Hiro Capital, North Base Media, Axilor Ventures, and 3one4 Capital.
With this funding, Loco will be spun out as a separate entity led by founders Anirudh Pandita and Ashwin Suresh, while parent firm Pocket Aces will be controlled by co-founder Aditi Shrivastava.
The Indian gaming market has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, with the entry of games like PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile, Valorant and more. While it’s still not on par with markets like USA, it’s growing at a massive pace, which opens up a ton of opportunities for gaming related companies. Streaming is one such area, and while platforms like Twitch and even YouTube dominate the western hemisphere, India’s streamers have found comfort in a local platform by the name of Loco.
Loco features some of India’s biggest gaming streamers like Sc0ut, Jonathan, Mavi, Thug, Ghatak, Sumit, GTX Preet, Snax, Xyaa, GamingworldVerified, PsychoVerified, Pooja Gaming, HardCore Gamer, and me2Gaming.
Moreover, apart from streaming, it also hosts multiple e-sports tournaments, allowing the gaming community in India to prove its mettle.
With this new funding, the company aims to improve the streaming technology and provide more interactive features for both viewers and streamers to interact and create better content.
Moreover, apart from the financial backing, Loco also sees this as an opportunity to form a strategic partnership with Krafton.
Being backed by the publisher of India’s most popular game will certainly help Loco, which has already seen streaming numbers blow up over the past year thanks to COVID-19.
Krafton seems just as excited about this partnership, with Sean Hyunil Sohn, head of corporate development at Krafton saying, “At Krafton, we believe gamers’ appetite is only increasing in consuming live video game content and Loco is best placed in India to provide a world class game streaming platform and it has built a passionate community around itself.”
The South Korean game maker also plans to keep investing in India.
