EloElo Raises Pre-Series A Round Of $2.1 Mn Co-led By Waterbridge Ventures And Lumikai Fund The company stated that this infusion of funds will augment its continued focus on creator partnerships as well as aid the launch of new live game formats, scaling the platform to the next 10 million users
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Creator-led live social gaming platform EloElo informed on Tuesday that it has raised a Pre-Series A round of $2.1 million co-led by Waterbridge Ventures and Lumikai Fund, gaming and interactive media fund. Better Capital and talent management firm Exceed Entertainment also participated in the round.
The company stated that this infusion of funds will augment its continued focus on creator partnerships as well as aid the launch of new live game formats, scaling the platform to the next 10 million users.
"Live video is increasingly resonating with fans as it helps them build "authentic' relationships with creators. Today our users spend anywhere between 30-35 minutes daily enjoying live games, live streams on our app. In the next 1 year, we will be launching multiple creator-led live games and event formats that unlocks monetization for creators and interactive entertainment for users," said Saurabh Pandey, chief executive officer, and co-founder, Eloelo.
Founded in August 2020 by Saurabh Pandey and Akshay Dubey — Eloelo is a live streaming and social gaming platform and has seen a fifteenfold spike in users over the past 6 months, crossing 1 million users on the platform with over 100 million game events recorded.
"Saurabh and Akshay have captured lightning in a bottle with Eloelo. In under nine months, they've built India's leading creator-led social gaming community. EloElo has fostered an inclusive, welcoming, and safe community for friends and family to play together, and for fans to become stars in their own right. We look forward to working with the team as they build a truly next-generation social community leveraging the power of play for the next 10 million fans," shared Justin Shriram Keeling, general partner, Lumikai.
The platform has onboarded over 15,000 Influencers organically over the past few months. Interestingly, 50 per cent of their user base happens to be females. Eloelo provides a live interactive experienced where instead of just watching game shows or events users can participate and become interactive stars.
"Saurabh and Akshay are truly building a one-of-a-kind gamified live platform for content creators. Their best-in-class engagement & retention metrics in addition to over 1 million users on the platform demonstrates the unique value proposition of the platform. We have been partners with Eloelo since day one and this marks an important milestone in their vision of creating India's largest platform for the Creator Economy," added Ravi Kaushik, partner, Waterbridge Ventures.
Eloelo is positioned at the intersection of 2 of the most upcoming trends – Creator Economy and Live Social Gaming. Global Parallels to EloElo's model can be drawn to large companies in China such as Bigo Live that has a focus on live streaming does over $2 billion in annual revenues, HAGO which had over 100 million downloads in India pre-Chinese Apps ban.
"There are over 5 million creators in India but over 97 per cent of them have very limited income opportunities. With our differentiated offering, we have seen a lot of the excitement from Creators who have joined the platform and invited their fans from Social platforms as well," commented Akshay Dubey, co-founder, EloElo.
"The creator economy is experiencing an inflection point around the world and across market segments like India, Bharat, Gaming, and more. A brand new infrastructure is being built to help creators build, earn and grow. Eloelo is just that - an engine of growth for creators in Bharat and India," added Vaibhav Domkundwar, Better Capital.
Eloelo is adding much more live game templates for creators to host and offering engaging experiences to their fans. It has also started a creator program where aside from monetization, creators are equipped with data and insights from their live events along with guidance to help grow to 10 million users over the next 12 months.