Games24x7 has made a strategic investment in CricHeroes, the digital player focused on the grassroots cricket ecosystem.
Launched in 2016 as a scorekeeping app for grassroots cricketers to keep their scores, CricHeroes has emerged as the de facto standard with over 9 million registered users and 1.5 million+ matches scored. The Ahmedabad-based company is digitizing cricket at state and district level as well and emerging players are using their statistics from the CricHeroes app for various official tournaments. The company has already established strong credibility by partnering with 50+ BCCI State Cricket Associations and ICC Affiliated Members Countries.
Cricket is rapidly evolving as a data-driven sport with an increasing focus on performance analysis, scouting, and grooming talent. It is the second-largest sport in the world with an estimated fan base of 2.5b+ and 300 million+ active participants above the age of 16.
Indian cricket legend Sourav Ganguly, whose captaincy is credited with the renaissance of Indian cricket team says, “In my tenure as Indian captain, I found that some of the most outstanding talent came from small town India and did phenomenally well at the international level. Tier-2 and tier-3 cities are coming up as the new nursery of Indian cricket and will be very important for the future of the sport in this country. It is good to see companies such as Games24x7 and CricHeroes taking initiatives to popularise cricket and further enabling grassroot level cricketers and cricket clubs in these centres.”
“We are excited for Games24x7 to join our endeavour in building a platform for millions of passionate cricketers, recognizing their talent and making them better with performance analytics,” said founder Abhishek Desai.
“We already have a strong moat and built-in vitality. With this fund we aim to create a highly engaged community and bring some interesting technology solutions for grassroot cricket in the coming years,” said co-founder Kuntal Shah.
“We are already working with 150+ Associations around the world including ICC Test Playing Nations, BCCI State, District and Province level boards. This strategic partnership will help us grow much faster in this direction,” added co-founder Meet Shah.
Launched in 2019, Games24x7’s daily fantasy sports offering My11Circle is already a top fantasy sports platform in India, trusted by over 23 million sports enthusiasts. My11Circle is endorsed by an illustrious group of cricketers, including former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly, Indian Test team vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane, legendary batsman VVS Laxman and all-rounders, Shane Watson and Rashid Khan.
“Our daily fantasy sports offering has been focused on the top of the pyramid. This investment will be synergistic as it will help Games24x7 reach the bottom of the pyramid in cricket and drive its mission of extending awesome game playing experiences to more and more sports enthusiasts,” said Games24x7 chief financial officer Rahul Tewari.
Both the companies did not disclose the terms of the investment.