Amidst the global health crisis, India’s first and only poker network, Pocket52, has clocked record numbers to grow its userbase 5x in the last three months to become one of the fastest-growing real money gaming platforms in the country. And it is yet to set its foot on foreign soil.
The Bengaluru-based startup had earlier raised a $ 1.75 million strategic investment in Series A funding from an established game publisher, Gameskraft, in November 2019. The funds and expertise are currently in use to enhance Pocket52’s technology framework, expand the userbase, and scale business operations. The company plans to aggressively add more companies to its Poker network, which currently consists of partners, including the likes of Mobile Premier League (MPL) and four other platforms.
Built by serial entrepreneurs – Nitesh Salvi, Saurav Suman, Debashish Bhattacharjee & Satyam Verma, Pocket52 was quick to realize that player liquidity was the number one pain point in the industry. They understood that medicine would be something that gives them an option to not start from zero players when they launch, and the vitamin would be something that can help them hit a critical mass that ensures all tables have players to play on.
Not afraid to diversify with a pivot, they launched a Poker Network in Nov’19, less than a year after their launch in Dec’18. Poker Network enables anyone to start an Online Poker Business with Pocket52’s Plug & Play Network. The network consolidates the market – by aggregating traffic from all platforms, pools and enabling them to play together, real-time irrespective of where they logged in from.; The result is reduced depositor cost, engagement cost, and improved revenues.
Pocket52 had built a cryptographically-secure random number generator (RNG) algorithm (internationally certified by iTech Labs, Australia) that guaranteed fair play, thereby addressing the trust issue encountered by poker players.
Sharing his insights, Nitesh Salvi, CEO & Co-Founder of Pocket52, said, “Time and again the world has shown how execution trumps over the idea. Despite being a late entrant to a competitive poker industry, we are the fastest to gain a top 3 spot in the industry. With Gameskraft on board as the lead investor, Pocket52 now has the additional operational, technological, and commercial flexibility to develop innovative and exciting new partnerships and offer a broader customer choice.”
Speaking on the funding, Ramesh Prabhu, CFO of Gameskraft, added, “With the skill-based Real Money Gaming (RMG) space in India gaining whirlwind momentum especially in online poker, we are positive about our association with Pocket52. We are confident that the future holds huge growth potential as the concept of shared liquidity pool introduced in this market”.
With the first angel round in 2018 involving $600K in funds, led by Speciale Invest and marquee poker players Abhigya Sagar and a slew of other astute investors.
