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The Indian online gaming industry is flourishing with a wide variety of games that are letting young and old indulge in them. Among all other outdoor games the includes cricket, football, kabaddi, basketball, India is also witnessing a rise in the popularity of several indoor games like ludo, pool, carrom, free fire, and more, which are also letting the gamers of India rewarded with real cash prizes among a list of other rewards.
The large youth population and the rapid penetration of the internet have made the country really witness a gaming revolution that includes fantasy sports and social gaming platforms over the past decade or so. To name one of the most popular gaming hubs of India is to talk about WinZO. The New Delhi-based social gaming platform is well-known to offer monetary benefits and prizes to players from around the country.
Founded by Paavan Nanda and Saumya Singh Rathore in 2018, Winzo has been ingeniously developed as a vernacular gaming platform to tap into the Indian audiences hailing from the Tier 2, 3, and 4 cities.
WinZO offers a wide range of popular games from PubG to cricket, rummy, and more, which make up an enviable collection of 100+ games that rewards the users online. Read about WinZO Games, Founders and Team, Business model, Revenue Model, Growth, Funding and Investors, Name, Tagline, Logo, Awards, Challenges, Future Plans, and more.
WinZO - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | WinZO |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | New Delhi, India |
| Sector | Entertainment (Gaming) |
| Founders | Paavan Nanda & Saumya Singh Rathore |
| Founded | 2018 |
| Parent Organization | Tictok Skill Games Private Limited |
| Total Funding | $110.5 mn (January 2022) |
| Valuation | $365 mn (July 2021) |
| Revenue | $3.52 mn (FY20) |
| Website | winzogames.com |
| Contact | partnerships@winzogames.com |
WinZO - Latest News
About WinZO and How it Works
WinZO - Industry | Target Market Size
WinZO - Founders and team
WinZO - Startup Story | How was WinZO Started?
WinZO - Mission and Vision
WinZO - Product/Services
WinZO - USP and Innovation
WinZO - Name, Tagline, and Logo
WinZO - Business Model and Revenue Model
WinZO - User Acquisition and Growth
WinZO - Startup Challenges
WinZO - Funding and Investors
WinZO - Advertisements and Campaigns
WinZO - Advisors and Mentors
WinZO - Recognition and Achievements
WinZO - Future Plans
Vidhi Punamiya
WinZO - Latest News
January 19, 2022 - WinZo announces popular Youtuber CarryMinati as its brand ambassador.
December 10, 2021 - Winzo signs sponsorship deals with two Pro Kabaddi League franchises - Bengal Warriors, Gujarat Giants owned by Future Group and Adani Group respectively. This makes Winzo the principal sponsor for both the teams in the upcoming Vivo Pro Kabaddi League’s (PKL) Season 8.
March 9, 2021 - WinZO's first investor Hike sells its two-year-old stake that the company had in WinZO in order to pursue new ventures.
July 2, 2021 - WinZO announces of its latest Series C funding round where the company raises funds close to $65 million.
About WinZO and How it Works
WinZO is a microtransactions-powered vernacular entertainment platform, which has 100+ games served in 5 formats to the users in 10+ regional languages. The diverse game offerings include hyper-casual games such as Candy Crush, Metro Surfer, Carrom, Chess, Ludo, Pool to Mid-core flagship esports IPs like Free Fire.
WinZO is built with the idea of emerging as the ‘Netflix of Gaming’- one platform with games to play with your friends. To boost the gaming infrastructure in the country, WinZO, partners with individual, mid-size, and large global studios to bring a variety of games to its users on a single platform.
The social gaming startup also helps the developers improve their revenue by providing them with an alternative and a far more efficient model of monetization led by microtransactions rather than the conventional in-app purchases and advertisements. The partner developers of WinZO have clocked 100x more revenues from their games on WinZO in India as compared to their distribution channels such as Google Play Store, Apple store, etc.
In the short term, WinZO aspires to be the preferred platform of choice for both its stakeholders- gamers in Bharat (Tier 2 - Tier 5) and game developers. The company is always innovating and bringing products and features to empower its users and game developers.
Also, their decentralized language management portal has empowered housewives and college-going students by helping them earn upto ₹30,000 per month, thereby letting them become financially independent. Here, they only needed to help localize their product and add languages, remotely from their homes. For game developers, WinZO has come up with the Developers’ consoles to facilitate their outreach to the company and become more entrepreneurial in game development in light of assured revenue streams of upto 100x.
In the long term, WinZO envisions to be serving as a one-stop platform for all mobile-first entertainment media in India and other developing markets driven by the power of communities and microtransactions.
The company is empowering all its stakeholders on multiple fronts. The primary problem that WinZO started to solve was the efficient monetization of games in developing economies where in-app purchases and advertisements do not work. Through their microtransaction model, where 200 million+ microtransactions are clocked per month, their partner studios have witnessed growth upto 100X in their revenues. Hence, the model definitely has proved to be more effective.
WinZO - Industry | Target Market Size
The online gaming industry of India has seen quite a growth in recent years. The Indian gaming industry was valued at US$1.027 billion in 2020, which was a growth of around 17.3% from US$543 million, as it was recorded in 2016. With such growth, the industry is expected to reach US$2 billion by 2023. Though many gaming companies, including global giants, have felt a vacuum in India due to inefficient and unsustainable monetization models, WinZO, on seeing this huge potential, decided to foray into the gaming industry of India with hopes to prosper. The company relied mainly on the Tier 2 cities and beyond to achieve the estimated growth.
This is because when the company scrutinized the market, they were surprised to discover that around 80% of active gamers in India are from non-metro locations. Yes, it was found out that somewhere between 40% and 60% of the overall gamer population of India are from Tier II towns and beyond. All of this helped WinZO scale fast and grow large enough to be one of the most popular gaming companies of today. The company targets the small cities of India, where the gamers' ages range between 18 and 35 years.
WinZO - Founders and team
WinZO was co-founded by Paavan Nanda and Saumya Singh Rathore.
Paavan Nanda
Paavan is an engineer from NSIT, who later went to IIM-Calcutta and to the Copenhagen Business School. He worked with Bain & Company, Abbott Labs, and Merrill Lynch before co-founding Zostel Hospitality Pvt. Ltd., which emerged with ZO Rooms, an affordable and technology-driven hostel chain. However, ZO Rooms, after a failed merger with OYO, shut down, but it failed to put a halt to the rising entrepreneurial instinct of Nanda, who then co-founded WinZO with Saumya Singh Rathore in 2018.
Saumya Singh Rathore
Saumya is the co-founder of the vernacular social gaming platform, WinZO. She has a Master’s in Psychology from The University of Manchester, and eventually obtained a degree in Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society. Saumya had already worked with Paavan Nanda in Zo Rooms before the duo decided to found WinZO.
WinZO, currently, is a tight-knit team of around 40 young, enthusiastic, passionate, and talented people who believe in the company’s vision and hustle together to work on the most advanced cutting-edge technologies and provide the best value to the users. When the team closed its Series A and had 5 Million+ users, it was only a 9 member team.
The work culture at WinZO is vibrant, customer-focused, and fun as it might be imagined in a gaming venture. The team works hard at exemplary execution speed to push great new exciting features for the users and each small achievement is appreciated and celebrated. Weekly office parties and milestone celebrations also provide brings an extra motivation and energy to the team.
"We at WinZO believe that hiring right is more effective than hiring fast - peer interviews is how you get on with the mission. It is always a great support to have a team which is self-motivated, target driven, accountable and committed to the vision. Hence, we hire the best talent with the right value alignment with the company’s core values.", said Paavan Nanda, co-founder of WinZO.
Most of our relatively new colleagues have joined us through the recommendations from their friends already working with us as they wanted to be a part of our journey to build the Netflix of Gaming and solve some of the most challenging tech problems of the country - Saumya Singh Rathore, co-founder of WinZO.
WinZO - Startup Story | How was WinZO Started?
WinZO was conceptualized after studying the revolution that affordable smartphones and Reliance Jio had created in India in 2015-16, by providing users from even the remotest corners of the country, with powerful devices and affordable high-speed internet connections. Thanks to this revolution, India became the global leader in in-game downloads.
However, there was clearly a problem of efficient monetization for games in high potential developing markets that needed to be solved. This marked the journey of WinZO. To validate the concept, WinZO was launched as a subscription-based trivia app to monitor the user acceptance of the model.
Based on the encouraging results of this POC, they launched a micro-transaction powered vernacular hyper-casual gaming platform where users pay small sums of INR 2 - INR 25 to participate in real-time multiplayer games and win prizes from the pool of rewards set aside for them. This model had the elements of regional language, real-time competition, and affordability in consuming content yet paying for it. Together, these made WinZO an instant hit among the users of vernacular Bharat.
Chayanika Goswami
WinZO - Mission and Vision
WinZO focuses on the competitive multiplayer gaming experiences, and is charged with the mission to create a culturally relevant mobile games platform with broad rate of adoption.
WinZO aims to lead the Indian online gaming ecosystem with an expansive influencer network that is capable of catering to 50+ million registered users of the platform.
WinZO - Product/Services
WinZO is an off-play store app, which hosts 70+ casual to mid-core games in 5 formats and 10 Indian regional languages. Users here get the thrill of competition and instant gratification. It also ensures the personalization of content to serve users with relevant games based on their engagement pattern on the platform. The company is developing a community of gamers who can engage and compete with each other via features such as WinZO Versus.
To make outreach easier for the developers, they have also launched WinZO Developer Console where any developer can sign up and submit content for integration on the app. The console has garnered massive traction, with over 1,000 games being submitted from across the globe. It also provides real-time analytics related to the game for efficient monitoring of the performance and ensure transparency.
WinZO - USP and Innovation
WinZO’s USP has always been its innovative and inclusive approach to solving real-life problems. While the intuitive approach for any gaming company would be to tap the easier metro and tier-1 audience first, WinZO saw and successfully tapped the potential of the real Bharat (Tier 2-Tier 5 towns, rural India) through its deep-down distribution strategy.
To facilitate this, they offer the support of 10+ regional Indian languages on the app. Their vision is to democratize entrepreneurship: They have decentralized language management through their portal to engage women who work from home to get a truly vernacular experience for players in Bharat.
For game developers, WinZO has helped them become more entrepreneurial in game development in light of assured and sustainable revenue streams. As many developers aren’t aware of the intricacies of this complex market, their 80% paying active user base ensures that the games are generating revenue from day 1 at no user acquisition expenses for the developers.
Vidhi Punamiya
WinZO - Name, Tagline, and Logo
The team took ‘ZO’ from their previous venture ZO Rooms/Zostel. ZO stands for speed & energy - so it's winning fast! Plus, when they Googled the word, they didn't find anything, so that solves for SEO with no money spent!
Avantika Bhardwaj
WinZO - Business Model and Revenue Model
As per App Annie 2018 Gaming Report, India stood highest in terms of Game downloads - at the same time in the bottom 10 for in-app purchases. The problem that WinZO is addressing is fairly simple: Bharat is in love with Gaming, but the Quality Studios/Independent developers do not see much potential in Bharat.
The WinZO Business Model is simple - Build the Gaming Ecosystem in Bharat. It aims to do that in three ways:
- Provide a one-stop Game Developer Console to the Gaming Studios - where it can publish the games and earn revenues out of it.
- Charge platform commission fees from all the games and share the revenue with the Game Developers via its Console.
- Offer employment opportunities to students and housewives across Bharat to provide content for quizzes via its indigenous portal.
WinZO - User Acquisition and Growth
The team has a mantra - every user should get a user. The product should market itself. WinZO simply doesn’t believe in spending a fortune on performance marketing endeavors - the core value system of the company is to be driven by ROI. They have done the traditional Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Tiktok Ads to drive traffic initially - but they have majorly relied on growth hacks and tie-ups, which has been a great success for them.
The most viral marketing campaigns involve those that emphasises the features that its players love the most- there is nothing more viral than a happy consumer getting his/her best friend or significant other to play with on the platform.
In a very short span of 1 year, WinZO had seen its registered user base grow 20 million+ who spent an average of 55 minutes per day on the platform and clocked in 200 million+ transactions per month. The platform witnessed a prominent growth by bringing the rural, isolated users to the digital grid. 20% of these users performed their first-ever online digital transaction on WinZO.
Currently, they are operating out of their office from Delhi. Of course, the team is working from home in these troubled times. To talk about their journey - the company started the year 2019 with merely 5 million users and ended the year with 15 million+ users. Now, they are sitting at 20 million+ users, clocking 200 million+ microtransactions with over 1 billion+ gameplays a month.
WinZO has grown pretty quickly in terms of revenue and was expected to grow more in FY21. The company last recorded a jump of 600% in FY20, when its revenues were recorded at around Rs 26.72 crore. However, the losses of the company were also recorded at Rs 26.68 crore.
WinZO - Startup Challenges
The most challenging part that WinZO faced was to generate the feeling of trust in the minds of the users mind who were seated in the remote areas of Bharat.
"What has worked well for us is - the entire product was on beta for at least six months and we were on stealth mode. We generated lots of insights around how to build trust and the product is designed for the users of Bharat who are from tier 2/3/4 towns. We also decided to be vernacular and be transparent to our users so that it's easy for them to build trust on the platform.", said Paavan Nanda.
As a result, they are now available in around 12 Regional Languages and nearly 90% of their audience is from the tier 2/3/4 towns of Bharat.
A significant other challenge is profitability, which the company is yet to gain, as reported last in FY20.
Vidhi Punamiya
WinZO - Funding and Investors
The company raised its seed money of undisclosed amount from K-Start. WinZO has also set up a fund of $1.5 Million to support Game Developers in India. On July 2, 2021, WinZO announced raising an amount of $65 million on a Series C funding round led by California-based Griffin Gaming Partners. The company has raised a total of $110.5 million in its fundraising to date.
Here is the list of WinZO funding rounds:
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investor |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 2, 2021 | Series C | $65 million | Griffin Gaming Partners |
| May 3, 2021 | Series B | $13 Million | - |
| April 9, 2021 | Debt Financing | $9.5 Million | - |
| September 3, 2020 | Series B | $18 Million | Courtside Ventures, Makers Fund |
| February 22, 2019 | Series A | $5 Million | Hike, Kalaari Capital |
WinZO - Advertisements and Campaigns
Winzo has recently partnered with popular YouTuber Ajey Nagar, commonly referred to as CarryMinati, to serve as its brand ambassador on January 19, 2022. After CarryMinati, WinZO trumps by choosing "BB ki vines" feat, filmfare recipient digital sensation Bhuvam Bam as its brand ambassador, as the company PR goes dated February 15, 2022. The Vernacular Online Gaming Giant announced that this collaboration with BB will help the company create culturally relevant content that would be relatable even for the persons belonging from the remoter sections of the country.
The Indian content creator from Faridabad, who boasts of having over 34 million subscribers will now be coming up with interesting game-related content that will unique, engaging and relatable on his streaming channel 'Carryislive'. Furthermore, he also signed up for another solo integration on his major YouTube channel ‘CarryMinati‘ as part of this relationship. Here's what WinZO Co-founder Saumya Singh Rathore remarked on this development,
“We are thrilled to have him on board. We collectively hope to further our vision of promoting the spirit of winning and culturally relevant content across Bharat.”
The New Delhi-based interactive social gaming company declared that it will be the official sports brand partner of the Ranveer Singh film ’83’ in December 2021.
India's largest social gaming and entertainment platform has partnered with the Ogilvy Chairman of Global Creative and Executive Chairman Piyush Pandey to launch its multilingual brand campaign to deliver 'winning moments' through a relatable social platform in December 2021.
The campaign that was launched with the tagline and hashtag "Jeetne mein Kick hai" by Leo Burnett Orchard has won a creative mandate for the same, as per reports dated December 2020.
WinZO - Advisors and Mentors
Kalaari is not only an investor but a great partner who is guiding the company all along the way as they are build this for Bharat. It is very important to note that WinZO is Kalaari’s second-largest bet in gaming, second only to Dream11. The team gets to learn a lot from how Harsh managed to build a profitable venture in the Indian Startup ecosystem.
WinZO is fortunate to have had Revant Bhate & Rahul Garg come in very early to push them to build this product with a sharp focus on unit economics. A fund like Kalaari has vast exposure to what works and what doesn't in the long term. This early understanding would help them to build in a sustainable fashion.
"We also have received a huge support from Kavin Bharti Mittal who has also backed the venture. Kavin is one of the finest product experts and his insights are always critical in building WinZO as the entertainment destination for Bharat. He has tremendous experience in building and distributing Hike - a home grown tech unicorn.", said Pavaan Nanda.
WinZO - Recognition and Achievements
WinZO received the following awards and recognitions in the past couple of years since they started their journey:
- Startup of the year - Technology by Entrepreneur India in 2019.
- Inc42 Startup Watchlist: Indian Media & Entertainment Startups To Watch Out For In 2020.
- SutraHR - "100" Top Startups in India in 2020.
- Businessworld Techtors 2020.
Chayanika Goswami
WinZO - Future Plans
Currently, the Winzo app has more than 70+ games available in 5 exciting modes. The company's goal for next year is fairly simple - to grow 10x from here, provide quality content for the users and keep building multiple engagement avenues for them. At the same time, WinZO also works to enhance the value propositions for their partner game developers and to bring fresh new content.
For example, WinZO has recently entered into partnerships with Garena for Free Fire to launch their esports for tier 2/3/4 towns across India in vernacular fashion to launch their esports for tier 2/3/4 towns across India in vernacular fashion - and it has been well received by the audience. The company has also launched its game developer console on which more than 50 studios have tied up.
"We have pledged $1.5 million+ fund to develop the independent game developers and emerging gaming studios of India. That’s our commitment to our users and game developers! The future for the entire gaming industry in India is quite exciting.", said Saumya Singh Rathore, co-founder of WinZO.
The team is observing exciting new trends on the platform amid the lockdown. With more female players winning on the app, gameplay is growing 30% day-on-day. The players are participating in board games more- Chess, Ludo & Carrom.
They are preferring to play all these games in private modes with their family/loved ones who are parted by covid19. Resultantly, all the metrics have grown exponentially on the app, WinZO is on the verge of touching their growth targets set for the year 2020 seven months early.
Frequently Asked Questions - FAQs
Is WinZo a Chinese app?
No, WinZo App is an Indian App headquartered in New Delhi, India.
Is WinZo App legal?
Yes, WinZo was founded in 2018 and is a 100% legal and genuine gaming platform that operates in most of the states in India. It is in fact counted to be one of India's best gaming apps in the social category.
Who is the owner of WinZo?
Paavan Nanda and Saumya Singh Rathore are the Founders of WinZo.
Source :- https://startuptalky.com/ Author :- Rishabh Rathi Date :-February 15, 2022 at 05:16PM