South African Web3 Gaming Outfit, Carry1st, raises $27 Million to Acquire and Build Game Titles

South African gaming startup, Carry1st, has raised $27 million in a pre-series B round led by BitKraft Ventures

Previous investors, a16z and Konvoy Ventures, also participated in the round, alongside TTV Capital, Alumni Ventures, Lateral Frontiers VC, and Kepple Ventures.

'We now have, in our minds, the top three funds that concentrate on the game and the web3. And so it just adds even more resources, perspective, and assistance to help us achieve our goals,” CEO, Cordel Robbin-Coker, said in an interview

??It's official: We’re partnering with South African rapper @Nasty_CSA to bring @PlayCODMobile to you! Get involved through live broadcasts and face-to-face events from Nasty c and Carry1st??

Stay tuned for more interesting updates and announcements coming soon! ??#CODMobileSApic.twitter.com/xPA4m8kBu3

— Carry1st (@carry1st) September 28, 2022

He said the company will use the money to develop in-house products, including local games for the African market – which the team has always wanted to do.

'This cycle is content driven because our content driver has grown. Before, licences for third-party games were granted and published exclusively in Africa. But since our last increase, we've acquired two games, and we expect that there will be opportunities to acquire more games, especially in this market. We can buy great franchises and own and operate and try to make them better. And we built our team as well, a game development team." – CEO, Carry1st

Carry1st wants to use funding to further develop, license, and release new games together with expanding pay1st, the monetization-service solution of the company, used to feed payments for corporate games and those of third-party publishers.

For example, an American video game developer, riot games, should start in 2023.

According to carry1st, the last round of funding comes after a strong year when one of the games that went through its accelerator programs became the no. 1 game downloaded from the USA in July 2022.  The game is called The President and was developed by Nairobi-based Mekan Games

In January 2022, Carry1st raised a $20 million Series A extension round led by the Web3-obsessed venture firm, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

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