New Delhi: IAN (Indian Angel Network) has made an angel round of investment in a gaming startup Gamiana. The fund invested is under $1 million. Gamiana plans to use the fund to grow its customer base, enhance gaming software development for existing games- Jamia Online and Vinashi- and bid for new gaming contracts in overseas markets.

Founded in 2008, Gamiana is an online entertainment company that provides user experience in building online communities through bridging virtual worlds, multiplayer games and social networks. It offers multi-player platforms and the ability to play games real time. This will address the new markets created by the synergies between the increase of internet on smartphones, online gaming and social networking across the globe. The company at the moment has 3 fulltime employees and has about 10 developers working on its titles through a separate arrangement. With the infusion of funds, Gamiana plans to hire both developers as well as build its publishing team comprising of producers, game managers, customer support, and others.

Commenting about the interest of the investors in Gamiana, Vishal Golia, Co-Founder, Gamiana, says, “The core team of the company comprises of veterans who collectively have decades of international gaming experience both in development as well as publishing of online games. IAN found this as the biggest strength of our company. This coupled with the fact that Gamiana’s focus is to publish its games in the fast growing developing markets such as Turkey, Phillipines, Brazil, and others, and is not merely India-centric, offered a very inviting prospect for our investors.” Prior to starting Gamiana, Golia founded and led Maharaja Games. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Northern Arizona University.

Additionally, the company will continue to develop real-time synchronous games across PC, Facebook and wireless platforms. The management team consists of international gaming veterans who have experience in the development and publishing of online multi-player games. The company plans to be pushing full throttle to hire and build its publishing team, carry out additional development of its titles and seek publishing partners for these titles around the globe. They also plan to release their first title, Jamia Online, a virtual world of teens, which is in beta at the moment, in a matter of weeks. This will be followed by a summer launch of their second title, Vinashi. Golia adds, “The global video games industry was around $75 billion in 2011 and is projected to grow to $90 billion in 2013 (source PWC report). Out of this, online and smartphone gaming are the two biggest growing sectors. Our target- the emerging markets and other core markets- represents a direct $700 million opportunity.”

Chetan Shah, IAN Member, says, “The passion and domain expertise that Vishal and Summet bring to Gamiana and their ability to execute the business plan built my confidence in this team.” IAN invests in start-ups, early stage ventures with a unique model of incubator. In 2011, IAN  funded 10 deals with nearly $10 million.

Commenting on the competition, Golia says, “While there are still fewer players in the single login multi-platform access space, it’s beginning to gain a fair amount of traction worldwide. Therefore, Gamiana's competition are all those companies who operate in a similar space. However, since this market is growing at a very fast pace and we are targeting the emerging markets, there is a fair amount of blue ocean that is yet to be explored.”