We still remember it was in the month of June 2018, when Shubham Malhotra, who is one of the founders of the MPL, visited GeekyAnts personally to talk about their requirements. We were excited about his business idea and goal of building India's largest Mobile eSports Platform (MPL) that is accessible to everyone. After a couple of minutes of discussion with him, we agreed to be their tech partners.
Origin Stories
Shubham has a long career in the technical space where he has seen engagements with leading technological giants such as Hike Messenger, Capillary Technologies and BhartiSoftBank. Shubham’s expertise in designing algorithms, programming and fluency in Cloud computing has helped him establish a strong presence in India’s tech-business ecosystem. He was the Chief Technological Officer for two start-ups viz. CREO and Teewe. Shubham built a keen interest towards software development and analytics which was first initiated while pursuing B.E. (Honours) at BITS, Pilani. He efficiently built his entrepreneurial experience and industrial knowledge to co-create the MPL app in September 2018.
His partner, Sai Srinivas, who is the CEO and founder of MPL did his B.Tech from IIT Kanpur in aeronautical engineering. Sai also co-founded Base9, a company that organized and promoted live events across India in 2009. He also worked with the computer games company Zynga and had a short stint with Hike Messenger before founding CREO. Sai again joined Hike for some time after Hike acquired CREO and later ventured into the mobile e-sports sector with MPL.
How it started...
Back in the day, they were operating from an apartment with a very less number of employees. As they were very clear about technologies from the initial stage they onboarded two RN developers for a couple of months. As the requirements kept increasing the number of developers numbers has been increased from single-digit to double-digit. They launched on Google Play Store in October 2018 and on the Apple App Store in February 2019. Now they have a user base of more than 60 million as of Feb 2021 and have a net worth of $450 Million as of Sep 2020.
One of the key factors behind the scalability of MPL is that none of the mobile games are developed by them. They see themselves as a skill-based esports gaming platform, where developers can join and create games based on their ideation. Since day one, the focus was on making games as fast and user-friendly as possible on all their platforms.
In India the company has 60+ games on its platform. This is one of the factors to ensure a steady flow of users and increased engagement time. One of the reasons for MPL’s growth and user success in such a short span is the platform approach, which means users aren’t restricted to just one game when they download the MPL app. This also means MPL is able to attract audiences across genres.
Here are a few of their achievements:
- In the Year 2019 MPL was recognized as the ‘Best Fantasy Sports Operator’ by the India Gaming Awards.
- In March 2019, MPL signed up Virat Kohli, a prominent cricket player, as their brand ambassador for a duration of one year.
- On 15 April 2019, MPL signed up as a member of All India Gaming Federation (AIGF), an organisation which focuses on setting regulations and policies to govern the gaming industry in India.
- In March 2020, MPL entered the Indonesian market.
- On November 17, 2020, the BCCI (the Board of Control for Cricket in India) formally announced 'MPL sports apparel and accessories' as the official kit sponsor and the merchandise partner for both the national cricket team in all divisions.
- MPL's total funding stands at $225.5 million as of February 2021.
The Mobile Gaming industry does not have a massive presence in India. MPL, as an organisation, has not just built a reputation for itself in the industry but has also enhanced the presence of mobile gaming in the country. To read more about our contributions to the mission of MPL, read this case study.
Being the proud tech partners for MPL, we extend our appreciation and regards to the achievements of the company. We are optimistic of the success the platform will have globally and we wish you all the best for your future endeavors.
