Exclusive: Decoding Ashneer Grover’s Third Unicorn seed round, valuation and shareholding

Ashneer Grover’s new venture CrickPe (Third Unicorn Pvt Ltd) has raised $3.5 million in a seed round led by ZNL Growth Fund along with the participation of 28 other ventures and angel investors, according to its investment documents reviewed by Entrackr.

The seed round comes as a surprise because just recently Grover had posted that he will bootstrap his new company Third Unicorn as opposed to his previous venture BharatPe, one of the hyper-funded startups in India.

The board at CrickPe issued 1,13,800 shares at a share price of Rs 2,500 each, amounting to Rs 28.45 crore or $3.5 million, as per the documents.

ZNL Growth Fund led the round with Rs 10 crore while Vevek Ventures Investments and Rishaayu LLP infused Rs 4 crore and Rs 2 crore respectively, as per the documents. Over two dozen investors including Darshak Rameshchandra Shah, Sumit Bansal, Harsh Jayesh Shah, and Amit Goyal collectively poured in Rs 12.45 crore in Third Unicorn’s maiden round.

Following the allotment of the round, ZNL Growth holds 3.59% stake while Ashnner Grover and family own over 74%. Importantly, Ashneer’s co-founder Aseem Gharvi commands 8.85% of the capital in the company. As per Fintrackr’s estimates, the company has been valued at around Rs 280 crore $35 million (post allotment).

Grover did not respond to WhatsApp messages from Entrackr seeking comment for this story.

Third Unicorn is launching a fantasy sports app CrickPe which will allow players to participate in public, private, or "mega contests" to earn cash prizes. Entrackr had exclusively reported about CrickPe on Monday.

The launch of CrickPe comes ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) which will start on March 31. The venture, which is yet to launch apps for iOS and Android devices, will directly compete with Dream11, MPL and other fantasy sports applications.

Fantasy and real gaming space emerged as one of the top revenue generating segments in the last fiscal and which must have perhaps attracted Grover’s interest. Data compiled by Fintrackr shows Dream11 was the top in the list with Rs 3,841 crore followed by Gameskraft, Games24x7, A23, MPL and Gameberry. Gameskraft dominates in terms of profitability with Rs 937 crore profits.