Gaming unicorn Mobile Premier League goes into global expansion mode

Mobile Premier League (MPL), the mobile esports and digital gaming unicorn is in a global expansion mode amid a funding winter and macro-economic uncertainty, said a senior executive of the Bengaluru-based firm.

MPL recently launched its app in Nigeria, marking its first foray into the African gaming market. With this move, MPL is now present on four continents: Asia, North America, Europe, and Africa.

“We have a solid opinion that this is the right time to be spending money to grow your business as long as you have meaningful guardrails set to do that,” said Sai Srinivas, chief executive officer and co-founder of MPL, in an interview. 

He further said, “The goal is to be a global platform. We want to be available in as many countries as possible so that if there is a game developer and it wants to host a world cup with players from 100 different countries, we would ideally want to be the platform that they host on.”

The platform allows users to participate in free as well as paid competitions across many games in multiple categories, including fantasy sports, sports games, puzzles, and casual and board games.

Since its inception in 2018, the Sequoia-backed gaming company has steadily expanded its global footprint. In early 2022, MPL joined hands with GameDuell, a Berlin-headquartered leader in community card and board games. MPL has also established a strong presence in the USA, where it has been operating for two years.  

Nigeria's gaming market is a prime opportunity for MPL to make inroads into the African continent. With a population of 210 million, 70 per cent of whom are under the age of 30, Nigeria boasts the highest number of internet users in Africa, with a penetration rate of 51 per cent. About 23 per cent of the population (48 million) are gamers, 95 per cent of whom have a strong affinity towards mobile gaming. About 32 per cent of gamers in Nigeria pay for games, with a higher revenue per install than India. Its gaming market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 9-10 per cent between 2020 and 2024.

To ensure a more localized and engaging gaming experience, MPL has partnered with Carry1st, Africa's largest mobile gaming publisher, to launch in the continent. This partnership allows MPL to tap into Carry1st's extensive knowledge of the 270 million-plus African gaming market.

“We definitely intend to be in more markets,” said Srinivas, who co-founded the firm in 2018 along with Shubh Malhotra.

In September 2021, MPL raised its Series E round of financing led by Legatum Capital at a pre-money valuation of $2.3 billion. This made it India's second gaming unicorn or start-up valued at over $1 billion. The firm competes with players such as Dream11, WinZO, and My11Circle.

The Covid-19 pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020 also provided a fillip to an already-booming eSports industry in India and the world. However, later like other startups, MPL also faced the challenge of the funding winter and macroeconomic uncertainty, according to the sources. It had been trying to cut costs and become profitable. Last year in May, the firm laid off around 100 people and exited the Indonesian market.

The company reported a 3X surge in its loss to $149.3 million in the financial year 2021-2022 from $48.3 million in FY21, according to a report by media platform Inc42.  The firm saw its revenue from operations increase 29 per cent to $65.5 million in FY22 from $50.8 million in FY21.

India continued to remain the top market for MPL contributing more than 88 per cent to the firm’s total revenue of $66.8 million. Total expenses jumped 116 per cent to $215 million from $99.4 million in FY21. Advertising and promotional expenses rose 81 per cent to $92.2 million. MPL also spent $58.6 million on employee benefit expenses in FY22, a 255 per cent jump from $16.5 million in FY21.

Srinivas said that MPL has turned profitable on a group level since December 2022. He said the company’s net revenue grew by 80 per cent year-over-year. 

“We've been profitable since December of 2022,” said Srinivas. “Some of these external pressures sometimes make you much more efficient.  For the first few months, of course, it was a little tough, but eventually, as a business we are happy with respect to where we are.”

He said the firm implemented various optimization processes. Due to this the subsequent cost of launching new markets went down dramatically. 

The biggest cost that a tech company incurs is hosting, which includes infrastructure like cloud services. MPL optimized this. The second biggest cost for any company is the services it uses to manage the data.  “We as a company made it a point that we will move all (such) services in-house and not use any third-party services,” said Srinivas. “That led to dramatic savings in terms of how much money we were able to save and all that was ploughed back into the growth of the company.”

The absence of clear regulations had been another big challenge for online gaming companies. Srinivas said that the gaming regulations now provide clarity and would attract a lot more investors to invest in the industry and help it grow. 

“What has changed is that now there is clarity about how new game developers can enable the development and build games of skill,” said Srinivas. “This clarity was not there before. Due to this none of the investors knew, ‘How do I judge if this game is allowed or not allowed?’. It is actually game-changing for all the new game developers. They don't have to go through the same amount of effort and pain that the incumbents including us and some of our peers in the industry had to go through.”