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Former Nazara CEO Manish Agarwal and angel investor Ishank Gupta have raised Rs 160 crore for their new Web3 gaming venture, Kratos Studios, at a valuation of Rs 1,200 crore.

The funding round was led by Accel Partners, with participation from investors including Prosus Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Courtside Ventures, Nazara, and others.

The startup plans to infuse capital to build distribution rails in emerging markets for global Web3 games.

“We are providing the 500 million or more South Asian gamers an opportunity to leverage their time and skill to become creators of digital goods on the blockchain for global games. This will enable South Asia to transform into a digital goods’ factory for the gaming world,” Agarwal said in a statement.

Nazara Technologies has also invested in this round with an intent to collaborate with IndiGG on the Web3 front.

IndiGG is a blockchain-based gaming community (DAO) that is building distribution rails in emerging markets for global Web3 games. It will invest in the most promising Web3 games across the world.

IndiGG acquistion

Apart from fundraising, Kratos Studios has also acquired Polygon Lab-backed IndiGG via a token swap. Following the acquisition, existing INDI token holders will be swapped to new tokens at the time of the Token Generation Event for the new token. Until such time, the INDI token will continue to trade on existing exchanges.

“The IndiGG stack will partner with existing gaming micro-communities in South Asia, both on-ground and online, as sub-DAOs in the IndiGG ecosystem. These micro-communities will facilitate explosive community growth for global Web3 games,” Gupta said.

According to the startup, both co-founders will continue to collaborate closely with Polygon’s co-founder Sandeep Nailwal and Yield Guild Games’ (YGG) co-founder Gabby Dizon to create the world’s first gaming DAO.

“Blockchain can fundamentally transform gaming and accelerate the growth in emerging markets. We believe that this team is the best suited to unlock this value for gamers. We are committed to building a vibrant gaming ecosystem alongside IndiGG,” Subrata Mitra, Partner at Accel, added.