The company claims that it is the largest investment in the Indian sports tech ecosystem to date. “We have created the fantasy sports category in India to drive digital engagement to real-life sporting events and bring fans closer to the sport they love,” said CEO & co-founder Harsh Jain.
Some of Dream11’s early investors, including Multiples Alternate Asset Management and Kalaari Capital, are understood to have sold parts of their stake, making way for the new investors.Dream Sports, which owns online fantasy sports platform Dream11, has closed a $400-million secondary investment round led by new investors TCV, D1 Capital Partners and Falcon Edge. Post this fund-raise, the firm’s valuation has jumped over $4 billion, a source said. The company had raised $225 million at a valuation of $2.5 billion in September last year.
The current financing round also marks TCV’s first investment in India. TCV has invested in global tech companies including Netflix and Airbnb.
Some of Dream11’s early investors, including Multiples Alternate Asset Management and Kalaari Capital, are understood to have sold parts of their stake, making way for the new investors. However, Chinese backer Tencent continues to hold a single-digit percentage stake in the company. The round also saw participation from existing investors Tiger Global, ChrysCapital, TPG Growth, Steadview Capital and Footpath Ventures, Dream11 said in a statement.
The company claims that it is the largest investment in the Indian sports tech ecosystem to date. “We have created the fantasy sports category in India to drive digital engagement to real-life sporting events and bring fans closer to the sport they love,” said CEO & co-founder Harsh Jain.
Dream11 turned a unicorn, hitting a valuation of over $1 billion after a secondary investment by Steadview Capital worth $60 million in April 2019. Dream11 that has nearly 10 crore users had bagged the title sponsorship for the Indian Premier league (IPL) 2020 season with a winning bid of `222 crore.
In a recent interview with local media, Jain had said that even though the firm has turned profitable, it plans to diversify its business. Unlike many other start-ups that are gearing up for an initial public offering (IPO), it has no such plans as of yet.
The size of the Indian online gaming industry was estimated to be $1.1 billion in 2019. Analysts at Deloitte expect the segment to grow at a CAGR of 40% until 2022, taking the market size to $2.8 billion. The growth would be primarily driven by mobile gaming as 85% of the online gaming in India takes place on mobile, they said.
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