This marks a16z’s second investment in India, following its bet on cryptocurrency trading startup Coinswitch Kuber in October 2021.
Founded in June 2021 by Karata Dasmahapatra, Shivanshu Tyagi and Sambhav Jain, Plutus facilitates interactions between content creators and their fans through live and casual community games. The platform features live rooms, group chats, and creator-led games, integrated payments, and analytics, operating on a pay-as-you-go model.
Prior to this round, in March 2023, Plutus raised $280,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by student-focused venture capital firm Campus Fund, alongside other investors such as CIIE IIM Ahmedabad, Shruti, cofounder of ApnaKlub and Alagu Periyannan, founder of Bluejeans.
“Only 2% of the most famous creators make incredible living and there is 98% of the creators which do it as a side hobby because it is not able to generate the kind of money it would need to sustain one’s life,” Richa Bajpai, founder of Campus Fund told ET while discussing the investment.
“Plutus provides them with an infrastructure through which they can better engage with their fans and in the process of that also be able to gamify it so that it’s beneficial both for the creator as well as for the fans,” she added.
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Plutus is currently in discussions with another major venture capital firm for its upcoming Series A funding round, with details expected to be disclosed soon, according to Bajpai.
