Gobi Partners invests US$0.79M in Corous360, a Singapore-based games cloud company

Gobi Partners announced today in a press release that it has completed a S$1M (US$0.79M) round of funding in Corous360, a Singapore-headquartered games cloud company targeting the Southeast Asian market.

Corous360 is a subsidiary of DeClout, a holding company that comprises a group of IT and cloud service providers in Southeast Asia.

Kay-Mok Ku, general partner of Gobi Partners Singapore, will be joining the board of Corous360. He says that the online game market in Southeast Asia is under-penetrated compared to China.

Although Southeast Asia’s total population is about half of China, its game market is less than one-tenth the size of China, he adds. The reason for this is the fragmented and heterogeneous markets in Southeast Asia.

The rise of casual online and mobile games, which have universal appeal, could provide room for a unified, cloud-based game publishing platform to allow publishers and developers to deliver their games directly to Southeast Asia. Corous360, Kay-Mok believes, can deliver such a platform.

Corous360 offers a cloud-based gaming deployment platform which will have three major components: A Games Cloud infrastructure that provides a scalable platform for deployment of games into Southeast Asia; a one-stop Unified Payment platform for game publishers to access different payment methods and distribution channels; and a one-stop Gamers Community Portal that lets gamers to interact with one another and access relevant services and games content.

The company believes they are one of the first in the industry to offer a platform that combines the needs of publishers and developers with those of core and casual gamers.

The latest investment will be used to accelerate the firm’s regional expansion and enhance its services for publishers, developers, and gamers.

Gobi Partners will assist Corous360 with its knowledge of the interactive digital media industry in Asia and its network in China. Founded in 2002, Gobi Partners is a venture capital firm headquartered in Shanghai. It has offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Tianjin, and Singapore.

One key focus of the firm’s investment activity is the digital media and technology sector in China, with funds going to early stage companies. It manages four funds worth over US$300 million.