Streaming and e-sports platform Rooter has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightbox, March Gaming, and Duane Park Ventures. 9Unicorns, ADvantage, Capital-A, and Goal Ventures also took part in the round along with existing investors, including IeAD Sports & Health Tech Partners.
Founded by Piyush Kumar and Dipesh Agarwal, Rooter has risen as one of the key stakeholders in the Indian gaming ecosystem with 8.5 million monthly active users and over 30 million downloads. According to the company, around 1 million unique users create gaming content on the Rooter platform every month.
“Rooter has been growing at a blistering pace over the last 18 months in tandem with the ballooning mobile gaming market in India, and this fresh infusion of funds by such marquee domestic and international investors only validates our work. Our community of streamers has been witnessing amazing engagement on our platform, which has allowed us to increase our revenues in the last six months,” said Piyush, Founder, and CEO of Rooter to Businessline.com
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In May 2020, Rooter raised $1.7 million (about Rs 12.8 crore) in a pre-series A round from a slew of new and existing investors, including Paytm, Adidas Family-backed fund leAD Sports, Rockstud Capital, Founder Bank Capital, an early stage arm of RB Investments, Anthill Ventures, Venture Catalysts and other angel investors.
With this funding round, the company also drove the secondary sale for a few of its shareholders and an exit route for a few employees through ESOP buyback. The company is looking to almost double its team size by hiring across divisions.
The company’s offerings entail chart-topping games, including BGMI, Free Fire, Valorant, and Call of Duty, among others, through its streamers and e-sports tournaments. Rooter’s market competitors are Krafton and Lumikai-backed Loco and to some extent with Elevation Capital-backed Turnip. Both platforms had raised their seed round last year.
