Blog

Bengaluru-based fantasy gaming startup HalaPlay has raised Rs 9 crore in a recent funding round from Milan Ganatra Ventures. With this funding, founder and former CEO of Miles Software, Milan Ganatra marks his entry into India’s booming online gaming ecosystem. 

Milan has invested approximately Rs 9 crore against 6.5 percent equity in the Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) platform which is a subsidiary of the publicly listed Nazara Technologies. A veteran in software technologies and investment, Milan will be seen mentoring the young team of HalaPlay in his investor role.

Prior to this, HalaPlay raised two rounds of funding in an undisclosed seed round in November 2017 and Rs 40 crore Series A round in December 2018.

Milan began his entrepreneurial journey with Miles Software in 1998 and nearly two decades later sold it to Ebix Cash in 2018. Post his exit from the company, Milan has been exploring the fintech sector. He has recently launched a fintech startup 1Silver Bullet with an initial investment of $1 million (about Rs 7.2 crore) 

Additionally, he has set up an investment analytics platform named Finalyca with a funding of $200K, which is a joint venture with portfolio management services firm PMS Bazaar. Milan has also invested an undisclosed amount in school fee financing startup Financepeer. 

The online gaming industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent to $2.8 billion by 2022, up from $1.1 billion in 2019, according to a Deloitte India report released in January 2021. 

Although expected to suffer losses with IPL suspension this year for an indefinite period due to COVID-19, fantasy gaming has been a growing market in India on the back of the never-ending IPL craze among the Indians. Also, there is no dearth of fans for other sports such as football. 

With Nazara IPO seeing stellar listing gains, MPL coming close to becoming a unicorn with the latest $95 million Series D round and the fishing bandwagon of players, online gaming has already taken a hot seat among the investors. 

As Milan stated, India’s online gaming ecosystem has been on a consistent upward trajectory with the market set to grow to ~Rs 18,700 crore by 2022. 

“With the incredible potential it has shown so far, I felt that it was the right time to make a move. HalaPlay is amongst the top companies in the category which makes it an ideal platform to enter the space with,” he added.