Simple boost to mobile puzzle games

PlaySimple has a 22-member strong team and it plans to take the number to 50 by the end of next year

If you are fond of playing mobile games in the trivia, word and puzzle categories, there is now PlaySimple, a start-up which focuses on these.

Last week, the Bengaluru-based mobile social gaming company announced a Series-A round of funding from SAIF Partners and IDG Ventures. It raised $4 million (Rs 27 crore) from the venture capital firms and $500,000 in its seed round, from IDG Ventures and Yezdi Lashkari. The start-up will use the funds to develop new mobile games, aiming at global audiences across various casual gaming genres.

The company was founded in 2014 by Siddharth Jain, Preeti Reddy, Suraj Nalin and Siddhanth Jain. Advertisements and in-app purchases —virtual buys as one progresses in the game — are the sources of revenue for it. “Our data-driven approach has delivered strong results so far and we have broken even on a net basis,” says Sidhharth Jain, chief executive officer.

GuessUp and WordTrek, two games released by the firm, have seen little over 10 million downloads. The games are available on the Android, iOS and Windows platforms, and have an average play session of 15 minutes. It also plans to launch four more games soon. The start-up also made the Google Launchpad Accelerator Program that empowers founders with ideas and guides start-ups through mentorship and equity-free support. It targets English speakers from American and European countries.   

The start-up has a 22-member strong team and it plans to take the number to 50 by the end of next year.

In the past few months the gaming start-ups have been backed by various angel investors, with Ratan Tata investing in MadRat Games in June. Flixy Games also raised funds from Rebright partners in September.