Kolkata gaming company considering IPO, listing on LSE

A city-based entrepreneur is mulling to list his startup venture on the London Stock Exchange

A city-based entrepreneur, who tasted great success after a game developed by his company became wildly popular and topped a worldwide ranking for a brief period in 2019, is mulling to list his startup venture on the London Stock Exchange.

Funcell Games and two other group companies created eight games that help the entity gain popularity in the US and the UK, the firm's promoter and CEO Abhishek Malpani said.

"The flagship game of the company has been 'Idle Human' which topped the world ranking in the industry for seven consecutive days in August 2019 and is popular in the US, the UK, Australia and Canada. It still witnesses 20,000 downloads every day," he told PTI.

The success came after around 450 gaming projects failed, said Malpani who has been passionate about creating world-class games and did not even take an interest in his family's textile business.

Altogether, the company achieved over 170 million downloads so far for its eight games including 'Idle World', 'Ideal Car', 'Chores' and '9 months'.

"According to global game publishers, the company's valuation should be around Rs 1,000 crore if our four new games become popular.

"Our net profit was Rs 9 crore in 2019-20. We are now expecting to achieve Rs 20 crore profit after sharing 50 per cent of our revenue with the publishers," Malpani claimed.

Publishers in the sector are companies that promote games with campaigns and earn royalty from the earnings of developers.

"Two other group companies are being merged into Funcell games as part of its preparation for the IPO in a year or two. As our games are popular in overseas markets, we are looking to list the firm on the LSE. I, as a promoter, may dilute up to a 20 per cent stake in the initial public offer," he said.

He said the mobile game developing firm is in the process to expand its team of 55 employees to 100 in the city, after taking over a software development company.

"The expanded team will be able to upgrade the existing games and keep at least 20 new games active at any given point of time," he added.