Targeting to grow the e-sports community in the country, e-sport platform GamingMonk co-founder Abhay Sharma talks to Moneycontrol regarding their recent fundraising and the growing industry of gaming in the country. Excerpts:

Q: We know of popular games like Player Unknown Battle Ground (PUBG) and Clash Royale — what is a gaming platform though? What exactly do you guys do at GamingMonk?

A: GamingMonk is an e-sports gaming company based out of New Delhi. Launched in 2014, the company currently focuses on online and offline e-sports. We conduct offline tournaments for e-sport enthusiasts across India covering eight cities so far with an expansion plan of covering 16 cities by next year. The online e-sports portal was launched with an idea of bringing the tournaments experience online and with a vision to reach out to every gamer in India.

Q: What are these tournaments all about?

A: E-sport is all about community building. These tournaments allows players to play in the community for a cash prize. Last month, we had 120 tournaments for various games and winners have won between Rs 1,000 and Rs 50,000 depending on what games they are playing.

We have a total of 19 games on our platforms and 1,000 people can play a tournament at a time on GamingMonk as of now. With growing demand, 5,000 people will be able to play a tournament together from next month.

Q: You have recently raised funds. Tell us about it.

A: We have raised Rs 4 crore from Japan-based Incubate Fund, Rajan Anandan, VP, Google India and South East Asia and a clutch of other investors including Stellaris Ventures, Smile Group, AdvantEdge and Samir Khurana in the second round of funding. In the first round, GamingMonk raised an undisclosed amount of funding from early-stage seed investors AdvantEdge in 2017.

Q: What is your user base like? What are the most popular games being played these days?

A: We have a hundred thousand users and the most popular game on mobile is PUBG Mobile followed by Clash Royale; on consoles, it is FIFA and on computers, it is again PUBG. The most of all of these is PUBG mobile. The tournament for the same on our platform gets the monthly winner a cash prize of Rs 50,000 which he can reuse in playing games or encash as Amazon vouchers or even have it transferred to their personal bank accounts.

Q: What is your take on the e-sport market in India? Where do you see GamingMonk going from here?

India is at the cusp of massive online gaming adoption with an exponential increase in players and funding in this sector. We are focused on building a top-notch gaming experience for the e-sports enthusiasts and the community, in which players can thrive, improve their skills and become top competitors at an international level. The new infusion of funds comes at a right time that will help us achieve our vision of providing a smooth, transparent and credible gaming platform for all the players.