MUMBAI: Sports fan engagement platform Rooter has raised $1.7 million in a pre-series A funding round led by Paytm, Adidas family-backed leAD Sports, Rockstud Capital, and Founder Bank Capital – the early-stage arm of RB Investments.
Anthill Ventures, Venture Catalysts, and a few more current angel investors also participated in the round.
The fresh round of funding will be invested in enhancing Rooter’s existing user base by 8x margin and capitalizing on the upcoming esports gaming launch. This will add a new dimension to the platform in terms of highly engaged sports content. The new content strategy will also enable Rooter to launch a user monetization channel to boost content-based start-ups.
As part of the deal, Rooter is also entering into a strategic partnership with Paytm First Games where both companies will collaborate to grow cricket, fantasy sports, e-sports and gaming ecosystem.
Commenting on the development, Piyush, Founder, and CEO of Rooter said, “We started Rooter with the objective of creating a sports fan community and we are glad our pivot to content has found a strong product-market fit. Our engagement metrics and user growth have been excellent in the last two quarters. We are excited to onboard Paytm, who aside from their investment, will also integrate Rooter into Paytm and Paytm First Games while we will work with them to be the biggest source of user content in sports and gaming. We also welcome Rockstud Capital and Founder Bank Capital as investors in Rooter.”
Sudhanshu Gupta, COO Paytm First Games said, “We continue to grow our content offerings through gaming and the addition of Rooter’s communities and user-generated content will further enhance the use cases available on our platform. In the coming months, we will add more interactive content around Fantasy sports, Esports, and games while bringing benefits of the Paytm ecosystem to Rooter.”
A Rockstud Capital spokesperson said: “Sports fan engagement is a growing trend in India and Rooter has been its biggest enabler as well as a caterer. It has successfully served fans across India with seamless sports entertainment experience by leveraging advanced technologies and rich features that the platform offers. We believe in their value proposition and commitment to delivering extraordinary sports-based content to fans. We are sure that it will reach greater heights in the days to come.”
Rooter was founded by Piyush and Dipesh Agarwal in 2016. Its core objective was to connect fans with each other, thereby building a strong community. The platform was largely built around Live Sports Gaming during its infancy before it pivoted to content. The company proudly says that they are the only Indian Sports Platform, which comprises content developed by users and professionals. The fresh round of funding will be used to grow Rooter’s user base over the next one year and capitalizing on the company’s upcoming Esports & gaming content and communities.
