Indian Mobile Game Developer Moonfrog Labs Nabs $15M From Tiger And Sequoia

Treeline Wants To Take The Coding Out Of Building A BackendMoonfrog Labs, a Bangalore-based startup that makes mobile games especially for players in India, has scooped up a $15 million Series A from Tiger Global and returning investor Sequoia Capital.Co-founder Tanay Tayal tells TechCrunch that the fresh capital will be used for hiring and to develop games in new genres, including action, strategy, and roleplaying. Moonfrog Labs also plans to grow its technology platform, including its backend system and data analytics, and purse strategic distribution agreements.Its Series A brings the total Moonfrog Labs has raised so far to $16 million. It previously landed a $1 million seed round from Sequoia.The startup was founded in 2013 by a team of developers who previously worked for Zynga on titles including Mafia Wars, Bubble Safari, Castleville, and Empires & Allies. Moonfrog Labs’ most popular game is “Teen Patti Gold,” which has been downloaded more than two million times. The company claims it is currently the highest-grossing Android and iOS game in India.Tayal says challenges of designing mobile games for players in India include include the relatively high price of data and unreliable, slow broadband connections. Moonfrog Labs’ games are engineered to use less bandwidth and battery power so they can be played even on the cheapest smartphones.In terms of culture appeal, “Teen Patti Gold” is based on a three-card poker game that is popular in India and comes in four languages: English, Hindi, Gujarati, and Martahi.Moonfrog Labs also hold promotions based on major events and holidays in India.“For example, last week was India’s festival of color, ‘Holi,’ during which we released a feature that allows players to haul dye and paint at one another across the table, just as they do during the festivities. Our players loved it, and the feature was a big success,” says Tayal. “We did a similar event during Diwali, the festival of lights.”Moonfrog Labs monetizes through in-app purchases instead of ads because it believes uninterrupted gameplay helps users stay more engaged. The startup will release new titles over the next couple of years and is also building a new platform for multiplayer games.

By: Unknown On 08:38

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Sources: Groupon India Has Picked Up $20M From Sequoia

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Daily deals and local commerce service Groupon has made no secret of its plans to explore strategic options for its holdings in Asia, and it looks like it’s not just Ticket Monster that is on the block. TechCrunch has learned that Groupon is picking up outside investment for Groupon India, and Sequoia is leading the charge with a $20 million stake.

From what we understand, the deal has already been announced to some senior staff but not made public otherwise. The plan is for Groupon India to raise another two rounds of outside funding, one more in 2015 and one in 2016 in a long-term strategy that appears to be aimed at further separating itself from its parent company in the U.S. and growing more autonomous.

A spokesperson for Groupon Inc., Groupon India’s CEO Ankur Warikoo and Sequoia all declined to comment for this story.

Groupon India was born out of one of Groupon’s first-ever acquisitions: India’s SoSasta, a deal announced in January 2011 and part of the company’s ambitious international expansion strategy. That business first was rebranded as “Crazeal” because of a domain squatter on Groupon.in. Eventually, Groupon regained its brand in the market.

But brand was only a small part of the battle. One of the issues, faced by many businesses that grow by acquisition, is that it can be a challenge to run operations for e-commerce businesses when they are not centralized on a common platform, not just when it comes to day-to-day reporting but also when the business wants to roll out new tech or new services.

And without the same kind of investment that Groupon is making in operations closer to home, the business has not been a blockbuster for the company. India does not get broken out in Groupon’s balance sheet, but in its last earnings, the rest of world segment accounted for only $101 million of the company’s $925 million in revenues, and Groupon noted that Ticket Monster accounted for a large part of revenue growth (but also losses) in the region. As a point of comparison, a year before, when there was no Ticket Monster, rest of world reported $74 million in revenues out of a total $768 million.

At the same time, e-commerce has become a very hot property in India. Companies like Snapdeal and Flipkart are among those that are collectively raising billions to meet demand from a rising middle class of consumers in the country ready to buy goods and services online or by mobile. With Snapdeal pivoting a couple of years ago to become a marketplace for the sale of online goods, Groupon India has hopes that its continuing focus on local commerce offers something differentiated to the market, and that investors will think so, too.

Sequoia has stood out as a key investor in India. According to CrunchBase, the VC is the all-time leading investor in the country in terms of number of deals. In 2015 so far, Sequoia-led deals have accounted for 12% of all Indian startup venture rounds and 33% of capital raised by those startups in 2015.

Groupon has admitted that it is looking at options for its Asia business, not just Ticket Monster.

“The company announced… that it is exploring a range of financing and strategic alternatives for its Asian businesses, including Ticket Monster. As part of that process, multiple parties have expressed preliminary interest in Ticket Monster, although it is too early to comment on structure, pricing or the likelihood of a transaction, as the process is still underway,” the company noted in its last earnings report.

Excluding Ticket Monster, rest of world was near break-even in the quarter, it said, compared with a $14.7 million segment operating loss a year ago.

It’s also not the only one rationalising after fast international growth. Longtime competitor LivingSocial, which had actually sold the Ticket Monster business to Groupon in November 2013, last month sold Let’s Bonus, its last international, non-platform business, in a management buy-out.

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SHARES0Share0Tweet0Share0000AdvertisementAdvertisementCrunchBaseGrouponFounded2008  OverviewGroupon is a deal-of-the-day website that offers discounted gift certificates usable at local or national companies. It is known as an online e-commerce platform that provides its users with the ability to purchase anything.By leveraging the company’s global relationships and scale, Groupon offers consumers a vast marketplace of unbeatable deals all over the world. Users have the ability to discover …LocationChicago Heights, IllinoisCategoriesDiscounts, Local Commerce, Advertising, Technology, Social Media, Internet, RetailFoundersBrad Keywell, Eric LefkofskyWebsitehttp://www.groupon.comFull profile for GrouponSequoia CapitalFounded1972  OverviewThe Sequoia team helps a small number of daring founders build legendary companies. We spur them to push the boundaries of what’s possible. In partnering with Sequoia, companies benefit from our unmatched community and the lessons we’ve learned over 40 years working with Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, John Morgridge, Jerry Yang, Elon Musk, Larry Page, Jan Koum, Brian Chesky, Drew Houston, Adi Tatarko …LocationMenlo Park, CaliforniaCategoriesVenture CapitalWebsitehttp://www.sequoiacap.comFull profile for Sequoia Capital NewslettersTechCrunch Daily Top headlines, delivered dailyTC Week-in-Review Most popular stories, delivered SundaysCrunchBase Daily Latest startup fundings, delivered dailyEnter AddressSubscribeRelated VideosPlay VideoApple Video Podcast26:08Play VideoAll You Need to Know About Today’s Apple EventPlay VideoHands On With The Apple WatchMore Related VideosSequoia Capital IndiaGrouponAsiaPopular PostsUp NextYou Can Now Build Your Own Moto 360 Smartwatch On Moto MakerPosted 13 hours ago CrunchBoardJob ListingsEnterprise Database ManagerFoundation CenterProgrammerFoundation CenterManager/Director of User Growth Figure 1Software Engineer, Search Engine OptimizationPayScaleProgram Manager, Search Engine OptimizationPayscaleMore from CrunchBoardAdvertisementTechCrunchNewsTCTVEventsCrunchBaseAboutStaffContact UsAdvertise With UsSend Us A TipInternationalChinaEuropeJapanFollow TechCrunchFacebookTwitterGoogle+LinkedInYoutubePinterestTumblrInstagramStumbleUponFeedTechCrunch AppsiOSAndroidWindows 8Subscribe to TechCrunch DailyLatest headlines delivered to you daily

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By: Unknown On 04:45

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India’s HomeLane Raises $4.5M Series A Led By Sequoia Capital

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By: Unknown On 01:25

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Capital Float, An Online Lending Platform For Indian Entrepreneurs, Scoops Up $13M From Sequoia and SAIF

Capital Float, a financial tech startup that wants to make it easier for small businesses in India to get loans, has raised a $13 million Series A led by SAIF Partners and Sequoia Capital. Existing investor Aspada also returned for the round.
Founded in 2013 and based in Bangalore with offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, Capital Float has raised a total of $17 million to date, all within the past twelve months. Capital Float will use its Series A to expand into more cities, improve its tech platform, and launch new products.
The company is also using its equity to finance loans, but plans to open up to other sources of capital by partnering with banks and individual investors. It makes money through a combination of interest and fees.
Surfing India’s E-Commerce Boom
So far, Capital Float has loaned more than $6 million to small businesses in 12 Indian cities. Its founders, Gaurav Hinduja and Sashank Rishyasringa, say the number of applications it processes increased by 10 times in 2014, with Capital Float now receiving about 200 loan requests per month.
Capital Float’s growth has been fueled mainly by India’s rapidly growing e-commerce market, which is expected to be worth $43 billion by the end of this decade. Seventy percent of its applicants are vendors who sell goods on marketplaces like Snapdeal, Flipkart, Amazon India, PayTM, or Myntra.
While e-commerce applicants are currently Capital Float’s largest vertical, the company also intends to launch products tailored to offline businesses, such as small manufacturers and business service providers.
About 20 percent to 30 percent of applicants are approved after the platform accesses their suitability based on 2,000 data points. In addition to the usual metrics, like credit bureau scores, Capital Float’s technology scores applications based on online data, including customer feedback and transaction history from online marketplaces. It also does psychometric assessments: in other words, applicants are asked questions to judge things like their ability to scale a business, attitude toward credit, and how they compare to competitors.
Capital Float’s use of data from online sources, including e-commerce marketplaces, is similar to the system developed by Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial for its new credit-scoring system, called Sesame Credit. Like Ant Financial, Capital Float is also tackling the problem of financing entrepreneurs in countries with fast-growing industries, such as e-commerce, that are underserved by traditional financial institutions.
Closing The Financing Gap
Hinduja and Rishyasringa said they became interested in financial tech while studying for their MBAs at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. They were intrigued by U.S. companies like Lending Club and On Deck, as well as Brazil’s NuBank (another Sequoia investment), and wanted to build a similar service in India.
Rishyasringa says that formal lending institutions in India provide $140 billion in loans to small businesses each year, but there is still a funding gap of $200 billion dollars. He adds that there are currently about 30 million small-to-medium businesses in India. Together they employ a total 69 million people and many are based in smaller cities, which Capital Float plans to expand into.

By: Unknown On 07:35

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