Here is our exclusive talk with FanClash Co-founder Ms. Richa Singh on companies’ objectives, growth plan, significant esports challenges, and strategies to establish a space in India.
1. What were FanClash’s goals and objectives when it was founded? In a nutshell, tell us about your journey since the foundation.
An average Esport fan spends about 8-10 hours a week watching professional tournaments, live streams by their favorite athlete, and videos about gameplay to improve or play better. Yet with so much knowledge about the field, there were no avenues for the fans to monetize their esports understanding. Thus was born FanClash. What started as a fantasy gaming application has now evolved into Asia’s largest eSports Fantasy platform. Esports experts aka fans directly can compete in fantasy games, play contests with their friends or with their favorite e-star, and receive their daily source of updates about their loved esports title.
FanClash is dedicated to reinventing the eSports fantasy world through entertaining, fair, and accessible gaming. We use cutting-edge technology and a data-driven attitude to design for eSports enthusiasts of all levels.
2. What are your growth plans for the next year?
We have become category leaders within two years of the company’s inception. But we set out to build a truly global product – From India, For the World. We aspire to become a household name in the global gaming community. With our recent fundraising, we want to scale new territories at a rapid pace. With the launch in the Philippines region early last month, the focus will be on establishing a presence in other regions of SEA this year and the USA by early 2023.
3. What were the major challenges FanClash has faced till now?
Esports is deemed to be the next big thing in the gaming industry’s progression. This is a global market with numerous unresolved issues around fantasy and audience participation. The biggest challenges for FanClash have been around resolving issues that stem from being a first mover in an uncharted industry. As a new entrant into the esports industry, they had to establish processes for manual data collections, among other preliminary steps.
The secondary challenge was putting together a team that fit their business requirements while also being familiar with the esports domain. FanClash has established its gaming platform for worldwide markets by using data as a moat.
4. What strategy FanClash is going to implement to expand its base in India?
India is spending way more on mobile, PC, and console games than a year ago, according to a March 21 report by EY and FICCI, which claims that the number of paying gamers in India increased by 17% y-o-y.
India being a smartphone-first market, mobile titles have to lead the way for both game connoisseurs and game developers. While the growth has been immense, it gets curtailed whenever there is government intervention around regulatory issues/concerns. On the other hand, the smartphone boom did wipe out the majority of the PC gaming market but the advent of futuristic games with new-age gameplays like Valorant, for example, has given rebirth to the audience who were looking for a way to get back on the bandwagon. We aim to revive the competitive CSGO circuit for starters followed by closely monitoring other popular gaming titles like Call of Duty, Dota 2, and League of Legends for appropriate action.
There already exists a healthy niche audience in the country who follow these titles passionately. Globally these PC games remain the most viewed & attended esports competitions that carry a significant prize pool. In fact, Dota 2 – a multiplayer battle royale arena game hosts an annual event called The Internationals. It has the largest single-tournament prize pool of any esports event, with the most recent one reaching US$40 million.
At the same time, we will continue to work with the top teams in the country, provide money-can’t-buy experiences to our fans and contribute to the development of the ecosystem. We also have been working with top gaming talents in the country to drive the messaging of fantasy gaming. Driven by our data-first approach, our fans are yet to see a host of very exciting and engaging features.
5. How is your platform keeping up with the competitive Esports industry?
Globally, there are 500 million core Esports watchers, with a 20% CAGR. This figure currently stands at 100 million in India and is anticipated to triple by 2025. FanClash provides a platform for fans to not only enjoy the game as a spectator but also to monetize their expertise in Esports. Users can construct fantasy teams from any tournament and earn incentives based on the teams’ real-life performance. This is similar to monetizing knowledge of cricket or football through other fantasy platforms.
While fantasy gaming has found significant popularity in traditional sports such as cricket, there was no similar channel available in electronic sports until FanClash. The site allows players to play fantasy on all major worldwide events in top eSports such as FreeFire, COD Mobile, COD PC, Valorant, CS:GO, League of Legends, DOTA 2, and others.