WinZO partners with Titan Capital backed Rein games and Kalaari backed Deftouch to unleash best gaming content for Bharat!

WinZO, India’s biggest vernacular social gaming platform, backed by Kalaari Capital and Hike has partnered with Titan Capital backed Rein Games and Kalaari backed Deftouch to bring multiplayer real time pool and multiplayer cricket to the 20MM registered users of Bharat. This comes in shortly after WinZO’s recent announcement of tie-up with Tecent to make PUBG tournaments available in 12 languages.

In the last few months, WinZO has partnered with 50+ indie-developers and global gaming studios such as Garena (for FreeFire), Nazara Technologies to host their games on its platform and solve for the monetization for the vernacular audience through its micro-transaction backed model. Being vernacular has helped WinZO spread its reach in the deeper roots of Bharat (Tier 2-5) and garner 10X growth within 12 months - its noteworthy that WinZO is the only vernacular gaming platform in the country with 12 languages made available.

Rein Games is a Noida based startup backed by Dr Ranjan Pai’s MEMG and Titan Capital established in 2018 is founded by four former Octro colleagues. WinZO has partnered with Rein games for the game of Pool, inspired by their product, R8 Ball Pool Pro which is a full-featured real time multiplayer pool game. The complex dynamics and physics used to develop WinZO Pool makes the game extremely realistic and engaging for the users. This game, like all others on WinZO, has features which allow users to invite and play the game with their friends in private mode, making it India’s first ever private real- time pool experience. Within one week of the launch of Pool on its platform, WinZO is observing an average time spent of 50-60 minutes on the game.

Deftouch Interactive Art on the other hand is the creator of Cricket Dangal. A Bangalore based venture, is also backed by Kalaari. Deftouch was the official gaming partner of RCB for IPL in 2017 in the prototype stage itself. WinZO has partnered with Deftouch to monetize their biggest IP, All Star Cricket. All Star Cricket is one of the most loved multiplayer cricket games on WinZO with an average time spent of 40-45 minutes, consumed in Hindi by 40% of users. What is unique about this game is that this is multiplayer- now while you bat, your friend would be bowling.

Through WinZO’s tech infra, these games have been especially optimized to operate in areas where the internet speeds are not reliable and stable. In recent times and during this COVID pandemic, owing to large internet demands, many areas are facing high fluctuations in the internet connectivity and speed. This leads to a suboptimal experience for the users especially gamers. Hence, these games have been developed to circumvent these hindrances and provide the greatest gaming experience to all WinZO users across Bharat.

“Gaming > Music + Movies, globally. We are thrilled to partner with the best teams to disrupt game monetization and to bring realtime social gaming experience to Bharat - truly the new age way of hanging out together. With WinZO’s Game Developer Console(console.winzogames.com) it’s easier to partner with transparency and co-build the gaming ecosystem with game developers of the country. GDC gives the direct access of WinZO’s 100% paying players to these developers/studios to monetize their games to their full potential on our platform. The entire gaming ecosystem is coming together to solve for the entertainment of Bharat in a sustainable fashion.” says Saumya Singh Rathore, Co-Founder of WinZO.

Vaibhav Gupta, Founder Rein Games said, “Our decision to collaborate with WinZO was a very intuitive one as we see a huge potential in this partnership. Not only shall the users of WinZO be able to enjoy the most authentic Pool experience out there, but we will also be able to cater to a larger audience, esp. non-metro, which is WinZO’ s stronghold in a sense and provide them with great user experience. What is also incredible about this partnership is the value alignment between the two organizations about customer focus and we are extremely sure that this partnership will create great value for both the organizations”

WinZO had earmarked $1.5 MM  fund to support content production in the country- as a part of ‘Build for Bharat’ initiative of the venture. Through this fund, WinZO encouraged the developers to create world class games with an assured capital and revenue stream. WinZO clocks 200 million micro transactions per month with more than 1.5 million bank accounts linked to the platform, 20% of these users are making their first ever media & entertainment payment on the platform.

WinZO to Mobilize 20Million User Base to Contribute towards PM Care Fund

Aiming to support India’s fight against COVID-19, WinZO, a vernacular social gaming platform, is seeking to mobilize its 20 million user base by educating them about the pandemic and encouraging them to contribution for the PM Cares fund through its micro-transaction powered platform.

WinZO has started a PM Cares fund live counter on its platform, for every game that players win on the platform, they now have the option to offer the micro-winnings towards the PM Fund. WinZO clocks 1 billion games per month on its vernacular platform that penetrates into deeper parts of Bharat. In Addition, the users can also contribute directly to the Fund.

“It is our duty to support the country and government that is doing everything to keep us safe. We want to utilize the reach and engagement to educate the deeper part of the country on how to keep safe. We want everyone to put their winning moments towards the corona PM fund. We are committed to be an active part of this fight to ‘K.O’ corona,” Saumya Singh Rathore, co-founder, WinZO Games said.

Over the last few weeks, WinZO has seen a surge in gaming activities on their platform. The firm has been constantly adding new content on the app. On user demand, it has recently added games like Ludo, PUBG Mobile and FreeFire for free on the platform.

“Currently people are isolated, they need to connect and what better than a social gaming platform. Our focus is to drive this attention to educate and sensitise this captive audience and actively include them in the smallest way possible in this battle of Bharat against covid19. Even micro-contribution will make all of us active participants and involved.” Rathore said.

WinZO is focused to sensitise and educate every Indian about this current crisis and how their contribution could change how the nation fares in the coming few months. It's playing for a cause now.

About WinZO:

WinZO is the largest vernacular gaming platform backed by marquee investors. It is available in 12 languages. The platform offers nearly 70+ games across multiple formats viz Tournament, Versus Mode and Table Format. On a single platform users can play all popular games such as Carrom, Cricket, 8 Ball Pool, Sniper 3D, Bubble Shooter, Fruit Samurai, Knife Up, Fantasy League, and Trivia based questions. These games are acquired from developers and studios from across the world. WinZO is designed to solve for a stable monetization in the Indian Gaming ecosystem, which experiences one of the highest engagements globally - a unique micro-transaction led model.

WinZO is a series A funded venture and is Kalaari’s second-biggest bet in the gaming category after Dream11. The Company is co-founded by Mr Paavan Nanda and Ms Saumya Singh Rathore. Paavan is a second-time entrepreneur. His first venture was Zostel & ZO Rooms, a Tiger Global backed aggregator model. Zostel is now Asia's largest chain of backpackers hostels. Paavan's corporate stint before entrepreneurship was with Bain & Company, Abbott Labs, and Bank of America - Global Trading Desk. He is an engineering graduate from NSIT - 2009, and completed his MBA from IIM Calcutta in 2014.

Saumya is a Psychology post-graduate from The University of Manchester- Also a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society. She has worked with KPMG London for about 1 years. She spent 5 years with the Times Group across- Print, Radio, and Television. She was also a part of the core team at ZO Rooms/Zostel and was majorly responsible for setting the Org for the launch and growth of ZO Rooms. She led the launch of ZO Rooms along with her current co-founder, Paavan and later teamed up with him to launch WinZO Games.

WinZO bring PUBG MOBILE online Tournaments in 10 regional languages for Indian gamers

WinZO, the leading vernacular social gaming platform, has entered into a partnership with Tencent Games India to bring PUBG MOBILE tournaments on the platform. WinZO will be now conducting PUBG MOBILE’s free to enter e-sports tournaments with prizes over Rs.1 Crore per month. 

WinZO crossed the 20 million install base mark in a record time of less than a year with 90% of its players playing from T2 to T5 cities of India. The platform has recorded more than 2 million bank accounts linked and is already clocking 200MM microtransactions per month. The average time spent is more than 55 minutes.

WinZO has deep penetration in the non-urban regions of Bharat (tier 3-5) 80% of the players are consuming the App in their own languages including Marathi, Hindi, Bangla, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Punjabi and Bhojpuri. With this WinZO has created a first-of-its-kind truly vernacular e-sports experience for the massively popular PUBG MOBILE. This will not only empower the gamers in Tier II to Tier V Indian cities to play the game but also make them acquainted with the rapidly emerging and prestigious e-sports leagues of the likes of ESL and Tencent’s own PUBG MOBILE global esports. This comes in after esports entered as an official category in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games.

Mr Paavan Nanda, Cofounder, WinZO Games, said: “This is one more step towards our endeavour to be all and end all destinations for a holistic entertainment experience. Tencent India’s trust in WinZO is a testament to our unique vision and our distinctive strategy to develop a Netflix of Gaming. Together we aspire to bring the best gaming experience to the mobile first audience of Bharat.” 

WinZO offers 70+ games on its platform; to name a few- PUBG MOBILE, Cricket, Carrom etc; in multiple format like 24*7 Tournaments, Real time multiplayer format, and the Versus mode. The ticket for most games varies from Free entry to Rs. 25/entry.  With over 80% of the users consuming the app in regional languages, WinZO stands apart from the rest of the competition. This is well reflected in its performance.