Games24x7 Success Story: How this company leads the gaming world in India

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Who does not loves to play games, especially online or pc games? Who says only kids can play games? Adults can equally indulge in games to give themselves a break from work.

Playing games is a great way to deal with boredom. It also acts as a stress-buster, when one has to take a minute to engage in the world of fun and fantasy and escape ordinary life. If we talk about the history of video games, then that dates back to somewhere in the 1950s to 1960s.

So far, with the rise of new technology, the gaming world has also evolved. Today, we have dedicated websites where we can play games directly through the internet without downloading them or using CDs or other mediums.

Games24x7 is one of the leading Indian online gaming startups which was founded in 2006 that offers various skill games like RummyCircle and My11Circle in a hyper-personalized gaming experience.

Read the article further to know more about Games24x7's success story, how it functions, its founders, business & revenue model, growth, funding and investors, and so on.

Games24x7 - Company Highlights

The Story of Games24x7 & how does it work
Games24x7 - Industry
Games24x7 - Founders
Games24x7 - Mission and Vision
Games24x7 - Name, Tagline, and Logo
Games24x7 - Business & Revenue Model
Games24x7 - Funding and Investors
Games24x7 - Investments
Games24x7 - Advertisements and Social Media
Games24x7 - Awards and Achievements
Games24x7 - Competitors
Games24x7 - Future Plans

The Story of Games24x7 & how does it work

The idea of Games24x7 came in a lab at New York University by two friends - Bhavin Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy. The duo shared common interests in online games, which eventually gave birth to Games24x7 in 2006.

It started its journey by launching its first online game RummyCircle. Rummy is a kind of card game played with two decks of cards and a total of two Jokers. The platform offers online rummy. Later in 2015, Ultimate Games (U Games), the company's casual games studio, was established to develop new games for the worldwide market.

Around 2019, Games24x7 launched My11Cricle, which is one of the country's top fantasy sports platforms. This platform includes sports like Cricket and Football.

In 2021, Games24x7 expanded its gaming platform by adding carrom, and kabaddi to its My11Cricle portfolio.

RummyCircle and My11Cricle involve real money as the prize. The Games24x7 crew is varied, skilled, and dedicated, with offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru, New Delhi, Kyiv, Philadelphia, and Miami. The firm focuses on providing amazing gaming experiences across multiple platforms by leveraging behavioral research, technology, and artificial intelligence.

Other than online gaming, Games24x7 has specialties in Game AI, Data Science, Skill Games, Content AI, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Supervised Learning, Mobile Games, Process AI, and Data Analytics.

Games24x7 now utilizes Amazon CloudWatch to survey its applications, which consistently delivers notifications that assist engineers to detect and act on likely problems before they arise, preventing an interruption in the user experience. In addition, since there is real money involved in their RummyCircle, it takes the help of the Amazon Neptune graph database to determine whether two players in a game are conspiring to outwit the other four players. This allows the company to stay alert and prevent any sort of fraudulent activities.

Games24x7 was highlighted as one of eight innovative startups using the potential of new-age innovation to develop a new-age India on Discovery Channel's TV series, India Startup Stories. It is also India's 99th unicorn company.

Games24x7 - Industry

As per a report, there are about five billion internet users around the world, accounting for 63% of the world's population. Experts predict that the tech industry will have a growth rate of 104% between 2018 and 2023.

Games24x7 - Founders

Bhavin Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy founded Games24x7 in 2006.

Bhavin Pandya

Bhavin Pandya is also the CEO of Games24x7. His responsibilities involve looking into the company's operations and game development. Bhavin graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He likes to make sure to achieve the company's strategic goals and ensures that the correct culture is established and maintained. One of the most challenging things for Bhavin was to leave a fully-funded Economics Ph.D. program at New York University to go after his passion and launch Games24x7. He has interned at General Electric Healthcare for almost a year.

Trivikraman Thampy

Trivikraman Thampy likes to be called Vikram by his teammates. He lives in Miami and has led the firm through multiple successful product launches, marketing campaigns, and investment rounds. Trivikraman has a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University and a bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He has a total of 14 years of experience in handling the analytical abilities and strategic judgments of the company ever since its beginning.

Games24x7 - Mission and Vision

The vision statement of Games24x7 is, "To nurture people to develop the core values and traits that we believe are the key to any organization’s success."

The Core Values of Games24x7 are:

• Honesty
• Humility
• Genuineness
• Decency
• Fairness

Games24x7 - Name, Tagline, and Logo

Over 14 years, Games24x7 has been transformed many times and has experimented with multiple logos and concepts.

The current logo of the company was revealed in January 2020. The new logo of the company demonstrates the importance of its mission.

The new logo shows a tech stack with coding symbols to give a form of a cube with the alphabet 'G' on top of the cube symbol. The logo mirrors Games24x7's brand identity, bringing in aspects of imagination, ideation, and intelligence. It is led by a bold and steady blue with a flash of lively orange color, accompanied by tranquil teal and aqua accents.

The tagline of Games24x7 is, "The Science of Gaming", which truly defines its creativity and as the technology leader in today's gaming market.

Games24x7 - Business & Revenue Model

The business model of Games24x7 can be defined as having an online model where it offers a hyper-personalized gaming experience to its customers. The company works on a model-driven rather than a data-driven one, with machine learning (ML) models directing essential business logic across the operation. By leveraging technologies such as AI, ML, Data Science, and so on, the company is now offering these services as B2B products for other firms.

The three major gaming platforms of Games24x7 are:

• RummyCircle
• My11Circle
• U Games

Games24x7 gets its major chunk of revenue through RummyCircle and My11Circle gaming platforms. The company reported having a total of Rs 1,573 crores in the fiscal year of 2021.

Games24x7 - Funding and Investors

Games24x7 has raised $75 million in fundraising across two waves. Their most recent fundraising came on March 30, 2022, in the form of a Venture-Series Unknown round. Four investors support Games24x7. The most recent investors are Malabar Investment Advisors and Tiger Global Management. The other two investors of Games24x7 are The Raine Group and Das & Co.        

Games24x7 - Investments

Games24x7 has made only one investment as of now. On August 18, 2021, Games24x7 invested in Cricheroes, a web portal aimed at the grassroots cricket ecosystem.

Games24x7 - Advertisements and Social Media

Games24x7 had rolled out a campaign for its sports fantasy platform by featuring Sourav Ganguly, who also happens to be the brand ambassador of My11Circle. The company launched a campaign ahead of IPL 2022. The idea of the ad is crafted by the Script Room. With the #IndiakaSabseBada1stPrize, which was a giveaway prize meant for the games on the My11Cricle platform.

Previously, in 2020, Games24x7 launched a campaign for its RummyCircle platform to bring out the light-hearted competitiveness of the gaming platform among the players. With the title "Apna Game Dikhao" the ad targeted the gaming spirit of rummy offers its players, which is a blend of multiple emotions. The campaign was unveiled on various media including OTT platforms and YouTube.

Recently, Games24x7 has roped in Bollywood Actor, Hrithik Roshan as its RummyCircle's brand ambassador.

Games24x7 - Awards and Achievements

In May 2022, BCCI awarded the title sponsorship rights of the Women's T20 Challenge 2022 to My11Circle.

The Indian Digital Marketing Awards (IDMA) 2021 was presented to RummyCircle by teaming with Affle's MAAS platform for a campaign. The unified platform won eight awards. This was Games24x7's first-ever mobile-user acquisition campaign with MAAS.

The awards are:

• Best use of Mobile to Drive Sales
• Cross Mobile Integration
• Most Effective App for Consumer
• Best Data-Driven Strategy
• Best Omni-Channel Campaign Management & Marketing Automation
• Most Effective Use of Digital Analytics
• Best Multi-Mobile Channel Campaign

Games24x7 - Competitors

Some of the top competitors of Games24x7 are:

1. Dream11
2. FanFight
3. Daily Fantasy Cricket
4. Classic Rummy
5. Junglee Rummy
6. Octro Inc
7. Sachar Gaming Pvt. Ltd.
8. Adda52.com

Games24x7 - Future Plans

The company plans to use its funds to invest more in technology, which is its main platform to diversify its content and aims to remain the market leader. It is also aiming to team with other content creators across international boundaries to bring more gaming content to India.

FAQs

Who is the CEO of Games24x7?

Bhavin Pandya is the CEO of Games24x7.

Who is the Brand Ambassador of Games24x7?

Games24x7 has onboarded Hrithik Roshan as it's Brand Ambassador.

Where is the head office of Games24x7?

The Head office of Games24x7 is in Mumbai.

Is Games24x7 a Unicorn?

Yes, Games24x7 is a Unicorn.