MadRat Games raises $1 million from Flipkart founders and other angels

MadRat Games is a Bangalore based offline gaming company building and retailing educational board games. The company has just raised a $1 million funding round from Flipkart founders Sachin and Binny Bansal. The other investors who have participated in the funding round include the founders of IT outsourcing firm GlobalLogic - Rajul Garg, Sanjay Singh, Manoj Agarwala and Tarun Upadhyay. MadRat Games distributes its products mainly via offline stores and would be using the funds for branding, marketing and expansion. The company had initially raised $500k from Blume Ventures and First Light Ventures.

The Indian toy industry is set to expand to Rs 13,000 crore in 2015 (source) and this is where MadRat Games is betting big. MadRat has inhouse IP of more than 70 games. They have streamlined the entire process from conceptualizing to designing to manufacturing and then distributing a game- MadRat has the capacity to produce 3-4 new games every month. We interviewed MadRat in October last year when they had crossed 1 lakh box sales and now this number has gone above 2 lakh. The company already sells its products through online sites such as Flipkart and Amazon, but these portals contribute only about 5% to its sales. A majority of sales comes via the 2000 odd stores they are available in.

Flipkart's founders have a great understanding of consumer branding and this is where there expetise will help MadRat a lot. Talking about the deal, Sachin Bansal said in an interview to ET, "Innovation is at the core of MadRat's approach to disrupt the market and led by a team of very talented individuals they enjoy a strong competitive advantage in the industry." MadRat now intends to channelize its presence. They will now focus on retailing through 50 stores. "Typically toys and games of different brands are grouped together on the same shelves. We want to set up custom shelves that will showcase only our products," says Rajat Dhaariwal, co-founder of MadRat Games. Their plan will only work out with retailers if MadRat becomes a significant contributor to their revenue. MadRat also plans to launch its own experience store in Bangalore soon and use customer data from the retail stores for future marketing.

MadRat is spearheaded by Rajat Dhariwal, Madhumita Halder and Manuj Dhariwal and the team has grown to more than 30. We covered MadRat in our Fabulous Startup WorkPlaces previously, check is out here:

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