Sports social gaming platform Rooter has raised funds amounting to Rs 4.5 crore in Series A funding round from a group of investors of integrated incubator platform Venture Catalysts.
The company is planning to use these funds in the expansion of its reach and appeal and establish itself on an international stage. The company is basically aiming at global expansion.
“This is a precursor to a big Series A round, which we are going to raise on November 12 when we will pitch in front of over 50 investors at the Adidas family-backed 2018 leAD Sports Accelerator Program,” said Piyush, CEO and co-founder at Rooter.
The investors that participated in the particular funding round included Khalid Al Tawil, Anjali Malhotra from Aviva, Pranay Nigotiya, Vishal Agarwal, Nishil Agarwal, Tharun Dhariwal and Vivek Awasthi among others.
The pre-series A round will also help the company get into markets of the GCC region including Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain.
Launched in 2016 by Piyush and Akshat Goel, the startup claims to be the world’s first sports social gaming platform that connects and engages fans during live matches. At present, it engages over half a million sports fans across eight sports including football, cricket, hockey, basketball, tennis, kabaddi, F1 and badminton.
“During our Investor Pitch Day in Dubai, Rooter was one of the six promising startups selected for capital funding on the back of its disruptive model and how it had altered the way sports fans connect with one another,” said Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, co-founder and president at Venture Catalysts. “We are pleased to formally come on-board as an investor in Rooter and have confidence in the fact that Piyush and his team will leverage the capital invested in the most strategic way to fuel growth and unlock the platform’s full potential.”
Prior to this, Rooter had first raised seed funding from a clutch of angel investors including Bollywood actor Boman Irani, Dhruv Chitgopekar, Prantik Dasgupta. It had also secured an amount from Intex Technologies last year.