Walmart owned Flipkart has announced its acquisition of intellectual property (IP) from Mech Mocha, a mobile gaming start-up that runs the country’s first live-social gaming platform Hello Play. In addition to taking over Mech Mocha’s IP, its skilled gaming team would also join Flipkart. Through this acquisition, Flipkart is trying to reinforce its gaming strategy.
Prakash Sikaria, Vice-president, Flipkart, says, “The firm is focused on providing consumers with an opportunity to access great products and content while giving them an engaging experience.” He further adds, “We see many first-time e-commerce users come online through formats such as video and games, as they build familiarity with the medium. Our observations of Flipkart GameZone reflect this trend. We see a strong correlation between casual gamers becoming early shoppers on Flipkart for their digital journey.”
Presently, people are being isolated by following social distancing and are looking for other options to connect with friends and family. Thus, they are indulging in social mobile gaming, as this sector has witnessed massive growth in India, lately.
Mech Mocha’s gaming platform is widely gaining popularity in India. The platform supports over seven Indian languages and offers more than 10 games that include the most popular multiplayer games namely carrom, ludo, snakes & ladders, cricket, and more.
Commenting on the acquisition, Arpita Kapoor, Co-founder and Chief Executive officer, Mech Mocha says, “With ‘vocal for local’ is the focus for digital applications across the nation, this strategic backing of Flipkart provides us an opportunity to be part of a larger ecosystem that helps us create unique social gaming experiences for Indian users.” She continues, “We look forward to being a part of the Flipkart ecosystem and leveraging the Flipkart Cloud platform, super coins, reward store, and Flipkart ads platform to strengthen the platform for our users.”
Mech Mocha has been supported by top-tier investors, including Blume Ventures, Accel Partners, and Shunwei Capital. After joining Flipkart, the Mech Mocha team is all set to focus on scaling up Flipkart’s gaming efforts under the leadership of Prakash.
According to the consulting firm RedSeer, there is a rise in new shopping models owing to changing customer demographics, including video-based and WhatsApp-based shopping. Thus, Flipkart is stretching its e-commerce operations across the country. Furthermore, it has also been making an array of acquisitions in the past few years such as PhonePe, Myntra, eBay and more.