Exclusive: Ritesh Agarwal joins MPL’s Series B round

Mobile Premier League or MPL has raised $500K from Oyo’s founder Ritesh Agarwal’s RA MPL Holding Pte. Agarwal seems to have floated the entity last month for making an investment in the fantasy sports platform.

The infusion from RA MPL Holding has come on the heels of MPL’s $90 million Series B round. Entrackr had exclusively reported the fundraising that valued the three-year-old startup in the range of $450 million.

MPL has allotted 44 preference shares at an issue price of $11,333.3 per share to raise $500K from RA MPL Holding Pte, shows filings made by the company in Singapore. Agarwal had registered this entity on October 2.

It’s worth noting that Agarwal also had floated Aroa Ventures in Singapore to make bets on growth-stage startups. However, he didn’t use Aroa to invest in MPL. Former Innov8’s chief operating officer (COO) Gaurav Gulati heads Aroa Ventures. The entity is yet to invest in any Indian startups.

Entrackr had exclusively reported about Aroa Ventures in July this year.

The investment from RA MPL Holding is a part of MPL's Series B round that was led by SIG Global. Several well-known angels including Haresh Chawla, Amrish Rau, Jitendra Gupta, Gaurav Munjal, Pawan Kumar Ongle and Shubham Gupta had also invested in the company.

Founded in September 2018, the startup works with third-party developers and then publishes their game on the platform where users can participate in skill-based games including cricket, puzzles, chess and crossword to win cash prizes. According to the company, it has grown to over 60 plus games and 6 crore users.

According to MPL, the number of players on the platform increased 7X during Indian Premier League or IPL. It also claimed a 100% surge in downloads. Apart from India, it also has a presence in Indonesia.

Over the past six months, there have been a lot of actions in the fantasy gaming space. MPL’s rival Dream11 secured a $225 million in a mix of primary and secondary investment from Tiger Global Management, TPG Tech Adjacencies, Chrys Capital and FootPath Ventures. NCR-based WinZo had also raised $18 million in a Series B funding round led by Makers Fund and New York-based Courtside Ventures. Besides these two platforms, Paytm First is major competition for MPL.