4 Most Funded African Gaming Startups

March 15, 2023, 11:19 a.m.

The gaming industry in Africa, in the past couple of years, has seen a lot of growth. This is largely due to the continent’s large and rapidly growing population, the increasing access to technology and the internet, and the growing interest in gaming from both casual and professional gamers.

While mobile gaming is the most popular form of gaming in the region, console, and PC gaming are also beginning to gain traction, particularly in countries like South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. According to a report commissioned by Carry1st and Newzoo, the region is projected to be the fastest-growing market globally for mobile gamers as well as people who pay for games, with the total number of active gamers growing from 77 to 186 million people between 2015 and 2021.

These trends have undoubtedly drawn the attention of some of the world’s biggest investors, leading to the increased investment activity witnessed in the market in the past year.

Carry1st

Carry1st is the leading publisher of social games and interactive content in Africa based in South Africa. Carry1st also partners with mobile games studios and content owners across the globe to enable them to launch their content profitably within the African region. They have developed a payments platform that allows users to make in-game purchases using their preferred method of payment, and a marketplace for digital products.

In January of 2023, Carry1st raised a record $27M from bluechip VC firms like BITKRAFT Ventures, a16z Games, Konvoy, Lateral Frontiers VC, and Kepple Africa Ventures. This latest round came on the back of another $26M raised between 2021 and 2022 and a $2.5M seed funding in 2020. This sums the total disclosed funding raised since its inception to $55.5M

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Metaverse Magna

Metaverse Magna is a Nigerian-based blockchain gaming platform and an African gaming community incubated by Nestcoin. Metaverse Magna provides a crypto-based play-to-earn platform targeting the African gaming community.

In September 2022, it raised a $3.2M seed round at a $30M valuation to build the largest gaming DAO in Africa. Investors who participated in the round included South Korean video game developer Wemade, Japan-based blockchain-focused venture capital firm Gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC), HashKey, Tess Ventures, LD Capital, Taureon, AFF, Polygon Studios, Casper Johansen (Spartan) and IndiGG

Skrmiish

Skrmiish is a South African online gaming company that is also based in Europe and North America. Launched in 2021, Skrmiish has developed a feature called MoneyMatch that allows players to earn real cash in every match they play, without having to wait for a tournament or find a peer to challenge.

MoneyMatch combines a traditional sportsbook approach with traditional AAA+ gameplay. Players get their MoneyMatch Rating (MMR) based on their performance data once they have synced Skrmiish with their game accounts.

In August 2022, Skrmiish raised a $2.5M seed round led by Launch Africa, after acquiring 100,000 players across 100 jurisdictions worldwide.

Eksab

Based in Egypt, Eksab is a monetized Fantasy Football platform that hosts daily competitions to test its users' football knowledge. Top winners win cash and other prizes such as signed jerseys, PlayStations, etc. In its first year, the startup processed more than five million predictions and secured a six-figure seed investment from 500 Startups to help it scale its product across the region.

By processing over 20 million games on its daily fantasy and prediction platforms in less than four years from its launch, Eksab was listed as the top 5 gaming app on the Google Play store.

Eksab raised a $3M seed round from 4DX Ventures, P1 Ventures, Golden Palms Investments, and Tofino Capital in 2022, to scale across MENA and Africa. This is in addition to a $520K raised in pre-seed and seed rounds in 2017 and 2020 respectively, summing its total disclosed fundraising to over $3.6M