Game live streaming and community platform Turnip has raised $1.63 million in a seed round led by Elevation Capital. The latest round also saw participation from Better Capital. With an aim to re-imagine community and interactions for gaming in India, Turnip was founded in April 2020 by Pooja Dubey and Aditya Sharma. Turnip is now a 12-member team composed of gaming enthusiasts from new-age companies such as Cure Fit, Razorpay, Google, Spotify, Flipkart, Rivigo, Paytm and Swiggy.
The company plans to use the funds to expand its reach to millions of gaming communities by building a scalable and seamless product. The startup also plans to recruit talented individuals who have a shared passion to build the future of gaming.
The Indian mobile gaming market has 600 million+ gamers, who spend over an hour on their device each day, higher than the average of 45 minutes that is spent on OTT platforms like Netflix. Keeping this in mind, the company envisages to revolutionise India’s gaming experience by empowering game streamers, esports players and guilds to run interactive experiences for their communities. Launched just five months ago, the Turnip app has already gained 250,000+ users, the company claims.
“The advent of the powerful smartphone and cheap data rates have pushed gaming into the spotlight. Whether it’s a 12-year-old learning to play chess, an Uber driver expressing his love for PubG, or working professionals bragging about their Among Us wins - the love for gaming knows no bounds. Tiding along with this transformative wave, we want to re-imagine community and interactions for gaming by creating a platform where mobile gamers can come together and share their love for gaming”, said Pooja Dubey, Co-Founder, Turnip.
Using Turnip, creators can seamlessly stream on YouTube, Facebook, Twitch; run interactive experiences for their communities and monetise the engagement. Additionally, gaming enthusiasts can join communities of their favourite creators, discover all experiences being offered and become a larger part of the show.
Commenting on the announcement, Vaas Bhaskar, Vice President, Elevation Capital said, “Game Streaming in India has moved from being a niche sub-culture to very mainstream. However, the experience remains quite non-interactive and primitive. Pooja and Aditya are making game stream viewing more participatory for the mobile-first audience and we are excited to be in this journey with them.”