Alibaba-backed UCWeb, maker of UC Browser, has announced the launch of a $20 million funding program for Indian startups producing games and apps. The announcement was made at the PocketGamer Connects conference in Bangalore under UCWeb’s accelerator program ‘9 Apps Dev’.
The plan is to back 100 Indian gaming startups with a ticket size of upto $500,000. Besides providing funding, 9Apps will also mentor these companies to gain more users, monetize their platforms, publish games and promote their products.
As per reports, the Indian gaming industry currently has 250 game developers and the gaming market in India will grow to $571.6 million at 134.5 per cent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) this year. According to Robert Bu, general manager for UCWeb India, the Indian gaming market is poised to grow nearly five-fold in three years – from $416 million in 2015 to $2 billion in 2018.
Some of the funded gaming startups are MadRat Games, Moonfrog Labs, Octro Inc and Mech Mocha Game Studios.
With increasing number of smartphone users, game developers have an open platform to show their creativity however there are predominance of budget phones which not suited for good quality games. “Smart developers will not only develop low-end games suited for the market as it is currently but also plan ahead for a better gaming environment in two to three years’ time,” Robert said.
