GAMING DEVELOPMENT STARTUP Carry1st PLAN TO INJECT $4M IN AFRICAN MOBILE GAMING
A startup that focuses on gaming development Carry1st plan to invest massively in-game publication across the continent of Africa, however, this comes after the firm had raised a $2.5 million seed round backed by CRE Venture Capital.
The latest fund raised brings the startup’s total venture capital to $4 million, which the startup plan will be deployed to support and invest in the continent’s game publishing.
The idea of Carry1st originated in the United States when both founder ‘Robbin-Coker’ and ‘Lucy Parry’ met and formed Carry1st as of the time they were working in an investment banking in New York. In the process it all took a different dimension according to Robbin-Coker:
“I convinced her to avoid going to business school and instead come to South Africa to Cape Town”. Adding that, “we launched with the idea that we wanted to bring the gaming industry…to the African continent”.
Meanwhile, the startup which has offices in New York, Lagos, and South Africa was actually co-founded two years ago by Sierra Leonean ‘Cordel Robbin-Coker’, American ‘Lucy Parry’, and not excluding Zimbabwean software engineer ‘Tinotenda Mundangepfupfu’.
Prior to the Carry1st plan, it’s evident the startup could make a huge impact, and this is based on demands from the growing population with a great desire for the internet coupled with rapid smartphone adoption. To ascertain the company’s pace, it has already launched two games as a direct download from its site – Hyper and Carry1st Trivia.
Based on this, the startup plans to use a portion of its latest fund coupled with its total capital to introduce more content onto its platform. Responding to this, ‘Robbin-Coker’ made it clear that “in order to do that, you need cash…to help a developer finish a game or entice a strong game to work with you”. He also added that Carry1st Trivia gained so much attention in Nigeria and Kenya for most of the year which had about one and a half million downloads.
This development will see the company expand its distribution channels, and this will include the Carry1st Brand Ambassador program and partnership with mobile operators, that will see a new sales agents with core responsibility of selling and promoting games across Africa.
It’s also important to note that the company is working strategically as a core channel by which games from Africa are developed and distributed coupled with games from other continents entering Africa.
In another dimension, Carry1st sees its core, and its last area of concern will be building its tech platform even as the startup plans to invest a quarter of its total capital in acquiring users while scaling its user base. But, should the startup platform function as that of the Asia regional mobile entertainment distribution platform? It will have to incubate popular games.
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