Rooter raises $25 Mn in Series A round

Streaming and e-sports platform Rooter has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightbox, March Gaming, and Duane Park Ventures. 9Unicorns, ADvantage, Capital-A, and Goal Ventures also participated in the round along with existing investors, including IeAD Sports & Health Tech Partners. 

The Delhi-based startup had raised $1.7 million in its pre-Series A round in May 2020. Rooter will use these funds to scale its userbase and game-streaming community, said the company in a press release.

Through this funding round, the company also facilitated the secondary sale for a few of its shareholders and an exit route for a few employees through ESOP buyback. The company is looking to almost double its team size by hiring across divisions.

Founded by Piyush Kumar and Dipesh Agarwal, Rooter has emerged as one of the significant players in the Indian gaming category with 8.5 million monthly active users and over 30 million downloads. According to the company, around 1 million unique users create gaming content on the Rooter platform every month.

The company covers chart-topping games, including BGMI, Free Fire, Valorant, and Call of Duty, among others, through its streamers and e-sports tournaments. 

Rooter directly competes with Krafton and Lumikai-backed Loco and to some extent with Elevation Capital-backed Turnip. Both platforms had raised their seed round last year.