WinZO is a social gaming platform. Hike was one of the early investors in WinZO. Recently, WinZO raised $13 million in its series B financing round. Hike got a 400% return on its early investment in WinZO with a complete exit from the vernacular social gaming platform.
Financial Growth of WinZO
In an earlier financial round closed by WinZO in May 2019, Hike invested $5 million in WinZO. The investment took place in the Series B funding round of the new social gaming platform.
In a recent development, WinZO collected $13 million from its existing investors Stephan Pagliuca, Makers Fund, and Courtside Venture, and also, it agreed to give a complete exit to Hike. The exit agreement was approved by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs(MCA).
As per the agreement revealed by WinZO, the gaming firm buys back Hike’s share with a $12 million investment.
WinZO was founded in 2018. Paavan Nanda and Saumya Singh are the co-founders of social gaming platform. WinZO has raised a total of $38 million in funds from its existing investors in different rounds. The startup completed a series B financing round in September 2020 with total fundraising of $18 million from the existing investors.
Why did Hike Exit from WinZO?
In 2021, Hike closed its messaging business to launch Rush, a gaming platform. That is the main reason behind WinZO and Hike’s fallout. Rush features match with WinZO operations. And the conflict became wide between the two firms.
Talking about the Hike exit, Paavan Nanda, the Co-Founder of WinZO, said:
“That’s correct. Hike’s been given a complete exit from WinZO. As founders, we are super chuffed and humbled to have a board that is extremely bullish, and completely aligned with the audacious goals we have set for ourselves. They had immensely supported the company through the process.”
WinZO platform hosts around 80 online games in five different formats. The firm targets users from 12+ regional languages.
The startup has a huge user base of 40 million. Small cities are the target audience of WinZO. Its game offerings include hyper-casual games such as Candy Crush, Metro Surfer, Carrom, Chess, Ludo, and Pool to mid-core flagship esports IPs like Free Fire.
