TradingLeagues a stock trading game platform, raises $3.5 million from Leo Capital and others
A fantasy gaming platform for the financial market, TradingLeagues, has raised $3.5 million from Leo Capital, Jeejeebhoy Family Office and the family office of KP Balaraj who is founder of Sequoia India and Westbridge Capital, in a pre-Series A funding round.
The co-founder of Upstox Raghu Kumar who has been involved with financial markets through his entire career saw that the investor participation rate in India was 3 percent which hasn't moved much in the past 10-15 years. "In India, 96 percent population does not have Demat account ( a dematerialized account that holds financial securities digitally and to trade shares in the share market). Many of the users on the platform have no knowledge of stock market and are unsure abt opening a Demat account. But through gaming they are getting a sense of how stock market works," said Kumar, Co-Founder, TradingLeagues.
The platform which is a gamified environment where people can learn about how stocks move and in the process make money by playing currently has 750,000 downloads and Kumar expects the number to reach one crore by April, 2024. "At Upstox, it took eight years for 100,000 downloads. On the other hand, at TradingLeagues it took us 5 months for 750,000 downloads. This is because of growth in gaming. In India, there are 50 crore gamers and this number will reach 70 crore by 2025. Also, 1/4th of the total gamers in the country are paid users," he said.
He said that most of the users on the gaming platform are Hindi-speaking and many are from tier II, III cities. "Most of our users are young between the age of 18-25 and who have just finished college or have started new jobs. These people have never experienced anything with stocks before. They are playing games like battle leagues where different companies are put against each like a Tata Motors versus Tata Steel and users have to pick a company that they think will perform better," the co-founder said.
Along with stocks and cryptos, the company is looking to expand to more asset classes. "Everything on the platform is simulated so there is no physical transaction taking place. Because of this, we can open more asset classes. But we will never expand outside financial markets," Kumar said.
The company is also building a web-based version of the platform. It is further looking at expanding to international markets. "We will be going for Series A round in few months which will be much larger funding round as we look to use the funds to expand globally," he said. While Kumar said that the government is taking a pro stance on gaming, there were reports of government considering tightening the rules regarding the data of gaming platforms related to stock market.
"As an online gaming company, we appreciate the concerns that have been raised about using exchange data for gaming purposes. However, our platform does not rely on exchange data for our games. Instead, we use a variety of data sources and models to arrive at a reference market price of the security. We use multiple data sources, including CFD (contracts for difference) market data feeds, dark pool market data, off-exchange data feeds, and crowd-sourced means. The reference market price is not intended for making financial decisions but for gaming purposes," the company said.
The company also mentioned that they do not claim that their reference market price is the market price of a security on a particular exchange, nor encourage users to use the reference price on their platform to make investment or trading decisions.
The co-founder of Upstox Raghu Kumar who has been involved with financial markets through his entire career saw that the investor participation rate in India was 3 percent which hasn't moved much in the past 10-15 years. "In India, 96 percent population does not have Demat account ( a dematerialized account that holds financial securities digitally and to trade shares in the share market). Many of the users on the platform have no knowledge of stock market and are unsure abt opening a Demat account. But through gaming they are getting a sense of how stock market works," said Kumar, Co-Founder, TradingLeagues.
The platform which is a gamified environment where people can learn about how stocks move and in the process make money by playing currently has 750,000 downloads and Kumar expects the number to reach one crore by April, 2024. "At Upstox, it took eight years for 100,000 downloads. On the other hand, at TradingLeagues it took us 5 months for 750,000 downloads. This is because of growth in gaming. In India, there are 50 crore gamers and this number will reach 70 crore by 2025. Also, 1/4th of the total gamers in the country are paid users," he said.
He said that most of the users on the gaming platform are Hindi-speaking and many are from tier II, III cities. "Most of our users are young between the age of 18-25 and who have just finished college or have started new jobs. These people have never experienced anything with stocks before. They are playing games like battle leagues where different companies are put against each like a Tata Motors versus Tata Steel and users have to pick a company that they think will perform better," the co-founder said.
Along with stocks and cryptos, the company is looking to expand to more asset classes. "Everything on the platform is simulated so there is no physical transaction taking place. Because of this, we can open more asset classes. But we will never expand outside financial markets," Kumar said.
The company is also building a web-based version of the platform. It is further looking at expanding to international markets. "We will be going for Series A round in few months which will be much larger funding round as we look to use the funds to expand globally," he said. While Kumar said that the government is taking a pro stance on gaming, there were reports of government considering tightening the rules regarding the data of gaming platforms related to stock market.
"As an online gaming company, we appreciate the concerns that have been raised about using exchange data for gaming purposes. However, our platform does not rely on exchange data for our games. Instead, we use a variety of data sources and models to arrive at a reference market price of the security. We use multiple data sources, including CFD (contracts for difference) market data feeds, dark pool market data, off-exchange data feeds, and crowd-sourced means. The reference market price is not intended for making financial decisions but for gaming purposes," the company said.
The company also mentioned that they do not claim that their reference market price is the market price of a security on a particular exchange, nor encourage users to use the reference price on their platform to make investment or trading decisions.
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