Mentioned in this article
- Indian esports platform SoStronk’s parent company Archetype Entertainment has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Inflection Point Ventures.
- The funds will be used for R&D, growing the team, marketing, and quality assurance.
- Additionally, some funding will go towards expanding into new games and additional countries such as Australia and Indonesia.
Bengaluru-based Archetype Entertainment, parent company of esports platform SoStronk, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Inflection Point Ventures (IP Ventures) – an early to mid-stage Indian venture fund comprised of over 200 CxOs and High-networth individuals (HNWI).
SoStronk is a tech enabler within the esports industry with its first product being a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) matchmaking platform focused on the Indian and South-East Asian regions. The company has a business-to-consumer (B2C) arm where it offers competitive gamers premium features on its platform for a subscription fee and a business-to-business (B2B) arm that provides co-branded and white-label tournament execution solutions for online and offline esports events in the region.
The company aims to utilize the funds for research and development, growing the team, marketing, and quality assurance. Along with this, the company said that it aims to diversify into additional game titles while expanding into new geographies such as Australia and Indonesia.
“SoStronk is a platform created for the gamers by gamers. More than half of the 200M+ esports enthusiasts are based in Asia and SoStronk has built a strong presence in the CS:GO space here,” IP Ventures angel investor, Tanmaya Vats said in a release announcing the funding.
Speaking to AFK Gaming about what the company plans to achieve with this investment, Prashant Prabhakar, co-founder and CEO of Archetype Entertainment, responded that his company is focusing on three distinct objectives. “SoStronk has plans to expand into multiple geographies with this fundraise, both into other emerging markets as well as mature markets. The second objective is to diversify into multiple esport titles, both on the B2C (platform) and B2B (tournament execution) fronts. Lastly, it’s to set us up for a Series A round by early 2020 where can start focusing on entirely new tech products in esports”.
While Prashant declined to comment on the valuation details and amount of the fundraising, he did confirm that this deal “values the company in the low six-figure USD range and is a pre-series A round after the bridge funding round provided by key strategic investor Akshat Rathee.”
Akshat Rathee is the founder and managing director of NODWIN Gaming, the company associated with many of India’s most recognizable esports tournament such as the ESL India Premiership, Dew Arena, ESL One Mumbai, and DreamHack Mumbai.
In August, Indian esports organization Global Esports announced that it raised a multi-million dollar seed round led by Venture Catalysts.
Disclosure: NODWIN Gaming holds a minority stake in AFK Gaming. Akshat Rathee, a strategic investor in SoStronk parent company Archetype Entertainment, is an Investor Director of AFK Gaming.
Nishant Patel is a writer for and the co-founder of AFK Gaming.
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