STAN, a blockchain based fan engagement platform, raises $2.5 million in a seed funding round led by internationally-renowned VC firm General Catalyst.
The latest funding round also attracted other prominent VCs including Better Capital and Eximius Ventures; it also saw participation from multiple superangels such as Aadil Mamujee from Opensea, Nakul Gupta from Coinbase, among others.
STAN will use the capital to launch its Esports platform, and build partnerships with top gaming organizations and players globally. The India-based gaming startup aims to offer unparalleled, best-in-class experiences to today’s gaming and esports fans worldwide.
At the same time, the funds will enable the startup to grow its team rapidly in the near future by onboarding world-class design and tech talent.
Speaking on the fundraise, Parth Chadha, Co-Founder, STAN, commented:
“We are attempting not just to enhance overall engagement in the esports fan ecosystem, but also to allow the creators and players to unlock new and innovative ways to interact with their fans, provide collectibles and NFTs and build thriving communities around popular esports titles and games.”
Parth also reveled that the company has already locked significant partnerships with numerous popular esports creators and organizations, and further many more such partnerships on the cards.
The company plans to raise more funds in the near future. “With a strong future growth trajectory envisaged for STAN, we are currently in discussions to raise more capital in the near future to support our strategic business growth, optimization and scale-up plans,” Parth said.
Anand Chandrasekaran, Partner, General Catalyst said:
“The two consumer spaces that have been among the fastest growing in India in terms of level of innovation, creator energy and mainstream adoption are esports and Web3/NFTs. This combination has led to a powerful flywheel for product platforms that unlock innovative engagement and business models for esports players and creators. STAN has stood out for us in this space in terms of their inside knowledge of esports, understanding of the market need from both the player and fan angles as well as an incredible team that is building a first-class product experience. General Catalyst (GC) is excited to be investors and lead the seed round in STAN.”
STAN is a blockchain based fan engagement platform dedicated to fans of various gaming creators and esports players get to collect, play and engage with their favourite esports and gaming-related collectibles and earn amazing perks and rewards. Apart from these, with STAN, one can get signed merchandise from celebrities, get a chance to visit his/ her favorite creators’ or streamers’ bootcamps, meet them on Instagram lives, join them one-on-one on clubs on STAN and do much more.
STAN is built by a founding team including co-founder Parth Chadha (who previously co-founded and ran EWar Games), Founder-investor Akshat Rathee aka LordNOD (co-founder Nodwin Gaming – which was acquired by Nazara), Rahul Singh (ex-EWar Games), Shubham Gupta (ex-Fanplay) and Nauman Mulla, aka no-fear Nauman (ex-NIMO TV and Huya).
Even though STAN’s platform is built on top of the Polygon Blockchain, however it enables engagement for its users through fun gamified loopable layers on the platform, which is made accessible to non-crypto native users through abstraction, low gas and fast processing of transactions, all while tapping into the Web3 economy.
Going forward, STAN will start focusing primarily on the incredibly popular BGMI and FreeFire titles and strive to bring together communities, drive unique player-fan interactions, and create collectibles and perks including NFTs, and so on. Interestingly, the STAN platform ensures that purchase of NFT-backed assets occurs via traditional in-game currency bought through a normal in-app purchase flow; this essentially means that any gaming fan would be able to purchase on-chain items through Apple Appstore or Google Playstore through normal fiat currency. With initiatives like this, the long-term goal of STAN is to make it easier for every gaming enthusiast, including mainstream consumers, to participate in the blockchain/Web3 economy.
The two consumer spaces that have been among the fastest-growing in the recent years in India vis-à-vis innovation, creator energy and mainstream adoption are esports and Web3 /NFTs.
STAN stands out as a combination of these two spaces – wherein esports meets Web3 to create new fan experiences while unlocking innovative engagement and business models for esports players and creators.
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