Reliance Industries said its Jio business unit has led a Series A funding round at Krikey, a San Francisco, California based AR gaming company. Jio Platforms has raised over $20 billion from Facebook, Google and other high-profile investors this year, and has led the Series A fundraising of Krikey, founded by sisters Jhanvi and Ketaki Shriram, the company confirmed on 2 December 2020.
While the investment was not disclosed, Reliance said in its statement that the sum took the overall funding at Krikey to $22 million so far.
Krikey has also launched an augmented reality (AR) based game called Yaatra, in partnership with Jio, Reliance said in its statement.
Using a mobile phone camera, Yaatra players can step into an action-adventure story to join the quest to defeat a monster army, according to the company. Using weapons such as the bow and arrow, chakra, lightning and fire bolts, players can battle through different levels of combat and puzzle games.
“Krikey will inspire a generation of Indians to embrace Augmented Reality. Our vision is to bring the best experiences from across the world to India and the introduction of Yaatra is a step in that direction,” said Jio director Akash Ambani.
“Augmented Reality gaming takes the user into a world of its own, and we invite every Jio and non-Jio user to experience AR through Yaatra,” he added in his media statement.
“We believe AR has a huge potential in not just gaming but in many other industries to disrupt the way people interact with the world around them. We are very excited to use the phone as the window back into the natural world and hope that people’s experiences in empathising with birds and gorillas and different ecosystems will encourage them to start to take real-world conservation behaviour changes,” said Jhanvi in an interview with Cheddar last year.