“India is at the cusp of massive online gaming adoption with an exponential increase in players and revenue expected in this sector,” said WaterBridge Ventures Managing Director Manish Kheterpal. “Real-money gaming will have a significant wallet share of online due to ubiquitous mobile access [in India], increasing disposable income, convenience and superior user experience.”
9stacks said that it will use the funding to ramp up user acquisition, data analytics, machine learning, as well as product and market expansion. The poker platform is seeking to become “the preferred” site for online poker in India.
“With Waterbridge Ventures becoming the lead investor in our series A fund raise, we are delighted to announce that 9stacks is India’s first online poker company to reach this funding milestone,” said 9stacks CEO Sudhir Kamath. “This is a great sign of confidence in the 9stacks team, the systems and processes we’ve put in place, in addition to the rapidly growing market.”
The poker startup, which launched last year, said that it recently took 25 of its users to the 2018 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. It said that two of those players finished in the top 100 in the Main Event. Two Indian poker players have won bracelets on poker’s biggest stage.