Gaming Start-up, Carry1st has raised N975 million ($2.5M) seed funding to boost its mobile gaming business across Africa.
The round which was led by CRE Venture Capital brings the startup’s total funding to about N1.56 billion ($4M). The company intends to use part of the funds raised to create more unique gaming content for its platform.
The company’s co-founder, Cordel Robbin-Coker also revealed they intend to spend at least 1 million dollars in acquiring users and scaling its user base.
“We want to dedicate at least a million dollars to actually going out and acquiring users and scaling our user base. And then, the final piece is really around the tech platform that we’re looking to build,”
Cordel Robbin-Coker, Co-founder Carry1st
Over 1.5 million downloads
Founded in 2018 by Cordel Robbin-Coker, Lucy Parry, and Tinotenda Mundangepfupfu, Carry1st has become one of Africa’s fastest-growing gaming startup.
Last year, the startup won AppsAfrica Best News and Entertainment Solution in Africa. Carry1st has already launched two games, Hyper and the more popular Carry1st Trivia.
According to Robbin-Coker, Carry1st Trivia has been the number one game in Nigeria for most of the year. He added that the game already had about 1.5 million downloads.
“In April, [Carry1st Trivia] did pretty well. It was the number one game in Nigeria, and Kenya for most of the year and did about one and a half million downloads.”
Cordel Robbin-Coker
Going forward the company plans to significantly invest in the gaming market by expanding its distribution channels which includes partnering with mobile operators and the Carry1st Brand Ambassador program.
Robbin-Coker has said that the company intends to bring the gaming industry to Africa.
“We’re looking to be the number one regional publisher of [gaming] content in the region…the publisher of record and the app store,” he said.
With the increasing youth population and improving internet penetration across the continent, the African gaming market will keep growing. Carry1st, armed with its new influx of cash will be looking to meet this growing demand.