Understanding Mobile Premier League
In under three years, MPL has become India’s second most valuable gaming company. Can it navigate a crowded market and legal challenges?
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Editor's note: Without a doubt, 2021 is a great time to be an online gaming company of any sort in India. Even better if you’ve just raised a big round of equity funding. In February, Mobile Premier League, which is just under three years old, announced it had closed a $95 million round at a valuation of about $945 million. That takes its total funds raised to around $225 million and puts MPL within spitting distance of becoming the second Indian gaming company to be a unicorn—a startup valued at $1 billion or more. The company’s cap table includes the who’s who of investing: Sequoia Capital India, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli (also MPL’s brand ambassador), Moore Capital, MDI Ventures, Times Internet and more. Investor interest in gaming has never been higher, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns last year that saw usage spike for mobile games in India. Dream11, the fantasy sport company that is the only unicorn in the sector, saw its valuation hit $5 billion early last month in a secondary round where …
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