US mobile gaming startup Lila Games raises $2.8m to establish its studio in India

US-based mobile game studio Lila Games said it raised US$2.8 million in its seed round to expand its hiring in India and establish its studio in the country.

Lila Games co-founder Avinash Pandey / Photo credit: Lila Games

The financing round was led by Bitkraft Ventures and included participation from Galaxy Interactive. Game industry angel investors such as Machine Zone co-founder Mike Sherrill, Super Evil Megacorp CEO Kristian Segerstrale, and CMUNE ex-CEO Ludovic Bodin also pitched in.

Lila Games is an early-stage game development company that’s currently working on a mobile free-to-play (F2P) shooter game codenamed Project B.L.A.C.K. It was founded by Joseph Kim, former chief product officer at Sonic series publisher SEGA, alongside former FunPlus lead game designer Paul Leydon, and Y Combinator alum Avinash Pandey.

As part of its hiring spree in India, Lila Games said it plans to onboard new talent across product management, development, game design, and art, according to a statement.

“Lila Games is made up of an outstanding founder team, and they are focused on a very sizable genre that has room for innovation on mobile,” said Bitkraft Ventures Founding General Partner Jens Hilgers. The exec added that the mobile first-person shooter market is still young and presents a significant opportunity to build out new sub-genres.

Citing data from App Annie, Lila Games said that the F2P shooter gaming market has been growing rapidly, logging a 47.7% compound annual growth rate in net revenue growth in Western markets since 2018.

The company also looks to tap into the upward trend of consumers spending on games, which Morgan Stanley expects to balloon to US$196 billion by 2022. The report also projected mobile gaming to represent almost half of the entire games market by that year.

See also: Alibaba takes another shot at online games: genius move or a bad call?

Another startup looking to capitalize on the growing gaming market is Indian social gaming platform WinZo, which recently launched a US$5 million fund aimed at the country’s game development landscape. The startup also raised US$18 million in a series B round led earlier this year.