Mobile Premier League is the mobile e-Sports platform based in India. It is operated by Bangalore-based Galactus Funware Technology Pvt. Ltd. Users can compete in multiple skill based mobile gaming tournaments on MPL. It was launched in September 2018 and as of April 2019, it claims a user base of more than 25 million.
History
Mobile Premier League was founded in September 2018 by Sai Srinivas Kiran Garimella and Shubham Malhotra, who earlier worked together on Consumer Electronics companyCREO. It started as a side-load only app, but was soon launched on Google Play Store in October 2018. Apple app store launch followed in Feb 2019. On 8 November 2018, it was announced that MPL has raised $5 Million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital. Speculation of a follow-up $30 Million funding round led by Go-Jek started as early as December 2018. On 24 April 2019, it was officially announced that MPL has raised $35.5 Million in Series A funding from lead investors Go-Ventures, Times Internet & Sequoia Capital India. On 15 April 2019, MPL signed up as a member of All India Gaming Federation, which focuses on setting regulations & policies to govern the gaming industry in India. In April 2019, MPL entered into a strategic partnership with flipkart owned PhonePe. The partnership allows PhonePe users to play the fantasy cricket game MPL SuperTeam from within its app, thus giving a larger audience reach to MPL. Expansion to Indonesian market was announced in early May 2019.
Game Formats
MPL is as a platform where users can signup to play skill-games and win cash prizes in return. User can choose to play from three different format of games
Tournaments
When playing in a tournament, users need to submit their high-score to rank high on the leader-board. Users can play a game multiple times in a tournament, only the highest score of each user is considered for final leader-board calculation.
1-vs-1 Battles
Some games on MPL platform are available to be played against real players in 1-vs-1 mode. In this two player format, user scoring higher or finishing the game first takes home the winning amount.
Fantasy Sports
Through SuperTeam fantasy sport platform, MPL gives its users an option to create a virtual team and join contests for upcoming live matches. Real life performance of selected players determine the points scored by the team created. Users are rewarded prizes based on the final ranking of their teams in a contest.
Branding & Campaigns
In March 2019, MPL signed up Virat Kohli as their brand ambassador for a duration of one year and planned to launch marketing campaigns ahead of IPL 2019. Kohli announced the partnership by posting a short video on his social media profiles. A TVC Campaign #GameKheloHeroBano, featuring Virat Kohli was launched in April 2019. The creative agency behind the campaign was Lowe Lintas Bangalore. With the launch of Superteam fantasy cricket league on MPL platform, K. L. Rahul announced being signed up as the brand ambassador for SuperTeam.
