HYDERABAD: Anthill Ventures, a venture capital firm having offices in Hyderabad, New York and Singapore, along with a consortium of investors, has pumped in Rs 10 million in Rooter, India’s first social sports engagement platform, Economic Times reports.
This investment marks another milestone for Rooter, which has earlier bagged investments from the likes of Hindi film actor Boman Irani, Intex Technologies, KWAN Entertainment and Aviva’s former marketing head Anjali Malhotra.
The startup is expected to utilise the funds for up its growth rate in India and expand in Europe courtesy joint ventures or strategic alliances. Apart from its B2C ambitions, it aims to break into the B2B market as well.
Anthill Studios, a subsidiary of Anthill Ventures has enabled Rooter to connect with corporate giants who will further help them to venture into international markets. As a part of the Anthill Studio accelerator programme, Rooter has been able to focus on monetization, particularly in data positioning and scaling by reaching out to prospect clients with sports engagement solutions. It has strengthened its SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) product offering as a fan engagement solution to sports teams, leagues and media companies across the world.
Rooter CEO and co-founder Piyush told the newswire: “Partnering with Anthill gives us capital and market reach: the two most important ingredients for exponential growth at Rooter. Also, their sizeable global network of investors and experts in the sports technology space will provide valuable guidance in numerous operational areas.”
Since its inception in Delhi in September 2016, Rooter has found success in covering sports such as cricket, hockey, tennis, football, basketball, badminton, motorsport and kabaddi, connecting 2.4 million sports fans through its app and web platform. Its growth story resulted in the company being the first from India to be invited for the prestigious leAD Accelerator Programme in Germany last year.
