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The Bangalore-based startup will use the funds to scale the team, work on multiple games for the Indian market and develop a backend platform

Bangalore-based mobile gaming startup Mech Mocha has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from early-stage VC fund Blume Ventures and e-commerce major Flipkart.

The startup will use the investments to scale the team, work on multiple games for the Indian market, and develop a backend platform that includes social and payment solutions for their games.

Mech Mocha was founded by Arpita Kapoor, Mohit Rangaraju and Shilp Gupta. Incubated at CIIE at IIM Ahmedabad, the company develops and publishes freemium games.

‘Chhota Bheem – Himalayan Game’ is the company’s first offering for the Indian market. Puppet Punch, another offering from Mech Mocha, claims to have clocked 100,000 downloads on iOS till date.

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The company has identified three key problems faced by the Indian gaming ecosystem -– lack of deeply-culturalised content, efficient ‘1-click 1-rupee’ payments, and weak alternatives to distribution –- as its core opportunity areas.

“Smartphone penetration in India assures that mobile gaming will be huge, with major growth drivers being the Tier II and Tier III cities . So, we are working with a laser-sharp focus on understanding the mass Indian gamer, primarily in three segments –- Chintu (6-15 year olds in urban/semi-urban areas), youngsters and Bhabhi ji (homemakers in urban areas) –- who already spend many hours on their mobile devices daily. Our current title has references of popular culture, local text gratifications in ‘Hinglish’ and many other India-inspired assets which makes it highly relatable and engaging for the audience,” says Arpita Kapoor, Co-founder and CEO of Mech Mocha.

According to her, the startup is challenging both the myths that exist in the Indian gaming ecosystem today — one, only globally hit games like Candy Crush Saga or Casino/gambling games like Teen Patti work, and two, Indian users do not monetise well.

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“We don’t want to be a Super Cell or King Games -– the one-hit wonders of mobile gaming. India is a very large market to focus on the traditional hit-based model of gaming companies. We inspire from Asian giants like DeNA and Tencent Games who rule their respective local markets by making gaming platforms that leverage local nuances like social gaming and popular culture,” she concluded.

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