India-based mobile gaming platform developer Mobile Premier League (MPL) received $95m today in a series D round featuring quantitative trading firm Susquehanna International Group (SIG), ride hailing service Gojek and telecommunications firm Telstra.
Investment firms Composite Capital Management and Moore Strategic Ventures co-led the round, which included Base Partners, RTP Global, Founders Circle and Play Ventures.
The funding was secured at a $945m post-money valuation and Gojek and Telstra participated through corporate venturing units Go-Ventures and Telstra Ventures respectively. It comes after the company raised $500,000 from employees through its Employee Investment Plan last week.
MPL runs a mobile gaming and esports platform with some 50 million users in India alone. It has more than 50 games on the platform and will put the funding towards international expansion and the growth of its esports tournament activities.
Sai Srinivas, MPL’s co-founder, and chief executive, said: “As we grow our presence and expand, this fresh round of funds will help us focus on our core value propositions – a robust platform with the best features for gamers and onboarding the best esports titles.
“The esports community in India is thriving, and we believe this is the perfect time to take Indian-made games to the world as well as help Indian gamers get recognised for their talent.”
Sequoia India joined Beenext to supply $5m for MPL in 2018 before leading a $35.5m series A round in April 2019 that included Times Internet, the internet subsidiary of media group Bennett, Coleman & Co, as well as Go-Ventures, Beenext, RTP Global, Base Growth and Venture Highway.
The company added $90m from Go-Ventures, SIG, telcoms firm Telkom Indonesia’s MDI Ventures unit, RTP Global, Sequoia India and Base Partners in September 2020 at a pre-money valuation of $375m to $400m.
