Indian social gaming platform STAN has raised $8.5 million in equity financing, with Google participating through its AI Future Fund. This round also attracted well-known investors such as Japanese game giant Bandai Namco Entertainment, Square Enix, and Reazon Holdings, showing strong international interest in India's gaming social market.
STAN is based in Singapore and is trying to create a gaming community platform that can compete with Discord, but with a completely different market strategy. The platform's biggest innovation lies in introducing a "play-to-earn" incentive mechanism, where users can earn in-app currency called "Gems" by winning in popular games such as PUBG Mobile, Free Fire Max, Minecraft, and Call of Duty, or by playing casual games like Ludo and Snake.
STAN's community features revolve around the concept of "clubs," allowing creators to set up dedicated chat rooms for each game on the platform. While anyone can join these clubs, accessing the "game experiences" provided by creators requires paying with social currency, and the platform takes a commission from these transactions.
The most attractive feature of the platform is the practicality of its currency system. Users can redeem their Gems for gift cards on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, PhonePe, and Flipkart. In addition, users can also obtain currency through methods such as recommending friends, spinning wheels, and daily rewards. This diversified earning mechanism greatly enhances user engagement.
Parth Chadha, co-founder and CEO of STAN, said, "STAN is a gathering place for gamers, where players can make friends, play together, and communicate with each other, which is the perfect fusion of social interaction and gaming." This positioning clearly distinguishes it from traditional social platforms like Discord, where user participation in community interactions mainly earns reputation rather than tangible rewards.
The platform has accumulated over 25 million downloads on Google Play and App Store, with about 5.5 million monthly active users. This achievement stands out in the competitive social app market, especially considering that STAN is currently only open in the Indian market.
STAN's business model is characterized by diversification. In addition to taking a cut from social currency transactions between users, the platform also collaborates with game publishers, studios, and developers, including well-known companies such as Krafton, Garena, and Roblox. These partners pay STAN to help them connect with players and creators on the platform.
Chadha revealed that nearly 100 game publishers, studios, and developers have joined the platform in the past two quarters, and more than 20 new partners are added each month. He said, "This is becoming a very interesting business flow."
Google's investment will be primarily used for the application and improvement of AI technology. Currently, 70% to 80% of content moderation on STAN is handled by AI, with the remaining part managed by a human moderation team. With Google's technical support, STAN plans to further reduce the proportion of manual moderation.
In terms of creator tools, STAN will launch an AI-driven toolkit, including avatar and meme generation features, as well as quick reply and chat filtering tools. Chadha said, "We are working with Google's team to use many interesting plug-and-play models to scale our business."
Notably, STAN is not the first project invested in by Google's AI Future Fund in India. Previously, the fund had invested in Toonsutra, a startup that uses AI technology to provide an immersive comic reading experience. Google confirmed that its cumulative investment in India has exceeded $550 million, with a portfolio that includes Toonsutra, STAN, Pixxel, and Adda247.
Although STAN is currently only open in India, 5% to 6% of its user engagement comes from overseas users, who usually access the service using Indian phone numbers and accounts. In the next year, STAN plans to expand internationally, starting with the Indian subcontinent, followed by Southeast Asia and Latin America.
In terms of financial performance, Chadha stated that the company was profitable for several months, but chose to continue investing to scale up. The company aims to become profitable again in 2027. Currently, STAN has about 40 employees, with less than 30 people working in product engineering.
Through this round of funding, STAN's total equity financing has reached approximately $15 million. The company's unique "play-to-earn" model and deep collaboration with traditional game publishers have enabled it to carve out a differentiated path in the competitive social gaming market. With the further application of AI technology and expansion into international markets, STAN is expected to become a significant player in the gaming social space.