Game streaming platform Rooter announced on May 28 that its revenues surged to Rs 82 crore ($10 million) for the financial year 2025 (FY25), benefiting from an expansion into the gaming commerce business.
Revenue increased by 120 percent year-on-year (YoY) from Rs 38 crore ($4.5 million) in FY24.
Rooter also claimed it has reduced its losses by 63 percent over the past 12 months but didn't disclose any specific figures. The startup had reported a loss of 65 crore in FY24. Rooter now hopes to achieve profitability within the current financial year.
Started in 2016 by Piyush Kumar and Dipesh Agarwal, Rooter started as a sports social network and pivoted to a game streaming platform in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic. It offers consumers a mixture of live streams, short-form content and videos from over a million gaming content creators across over 10 Indian languages.
The company claims to currently have over 85 million registered users who are spending 20 minutes every day on the platform.
About a year ago, Rooter launched a digital marketplace called Rooter Shop, which offers in-game currencies, vouchers, and digital gift cards across a range of categories.
This includes mobile games like BGMI (Battlegrounds Mobile India) and Free Fire, PC games like Valorant, and gaming platforms such as Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam. Rooter stated that people are spending an average of Rs 2,400 per month on this marketplace at present.
Rooter CEO Piyush Kumar told Moneycontrol that about 70 percent of the company's revenues is coming from consumers, largely driven by its gaming commerce business. This also includes revenue from user subscriptions and virtual gifts, though Kumar noted that these currently contribute only a small portion.
"Gaming companies are looking at newer marketplace models to push their growth because in-app purchase is their most important or rather the only way in which they make revenue, (gaming) marketplaces are helping game developers grow their market," Kumar explained. Among other gaming marketplaces in the market include Codashop and Unipin.
Kumar added that they are witnessing a substantial contribution from PC games in India, where the average order value also tends to be typically higher. PC games account for about 30 percent of the company's overall gross merchandise value (GMV), he said.
Rooter, which counts Lightbox among its backers, started its monetisation journey in 2022 with brand advertising and other brand-oriented initiatives. About 30 percent of the company's revenues now comes from brand and publisher monetisation channels.
Rooter currently works with over 100 brands and revenue from brands have been growing 10 percent every quarter, Kumar said.
Overall, Rooter is currently clocking $24 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and hopes to grow by four-fold to $90 million by March 2026.
"Our idea is that having built the biggest community of gamers in India, we should help game publishers and brands expand their presence," Kumar said.
"We have created an ecosystem where gamers are interacting with game publishers, doing various things in terms of content, shop, and vice versa. Game publishers are finding a better way to reach out to gamers and sell their products" he added.
These developments come amid a consolidation in the industry. Rooter rival Loco was acquired by Redwood, a technology-focused investment company based in the UAE, for $65 million in September 2024.
"We've come out of a pretty competitive phase... When we entered the market, it was a pretty cluttered category...We ended up being the only player which is currently active in India" Kumar said.
To date, Rooter has raised $37 million funding across multiple rounds from investors such as Trifecta Capital, Pivot Ventures, Baldota Family Office, Global Play Media, Denlow Private Trust, Venture Catalysts, and Potential Ventures, apart from Lightbox.
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