Google Backing Indian Social Gaming Platform STAN: A Significant Investment for Future Growth in Gaming Industry
Google has announced its investment in STAN, an Indian social gaming platform that serves as a connector between gamers, creators, communities, and publishers. The investment is part of an $8.5 million equity funding round, which also includes investments from prominent Japanese gaming companies Bandai Namco Entertainment, Square Enix, Reazon Holdings, Aptos Labs, King River Capital, General Catalyst, GFR Fund, and existing backers. Google participated in the round through its AI Futures Fund, launched in May to support startups utilizing its AI tools.
Headquartered in Singapore, STAN aims to establish itself as a premier gaming community platform, competing with Discord. The platform allows users to earn an in-app currency called “Gems” by winning games such as Krafton’s Battlegrounds Mobile India, Garena’s Free Fire Max, Minecraft, Call of Duty, and casual titles like Ludo and Snakes & Ladders.
Creators on the platform can establish chat rooms, or Clubs, tailored for each game. Although anyone can join these Clubs, users must pay a social currency to access the gaming experiences offered by creators. STAN takes a commission from these transactions. The primary attraction of the app seems to be the in-app currency, which can be redeemed for vouchers on various e-commerce platforms like Amazon, PhonePe, and Flipkart. Users can also earn currency through referrals, a spin-to-win wheel, and daily rewards.
STAN’s monetization model differentiates it from platforms like Discord, where users do not typically earn rewards through interactions. The platform has already garnered over 25 million downloads across the Play Store and App Store, with around 5.5 million monthly active users. In an interview, Parth Chadha, co-founder and CEO of STAN, attributed the platform’s success to its features, particularly the shift towards user-generated content last year.
STAN collaborates with game publishers, studios, and developers, including Krafton, Garena, and Roblox, who pay the startup to connect them with gamers and creators on the platform. Over the past two quarters, nearly 100 game publishers, studios, and developers have joined STAN, with more than 20 being added each month.
Looking forward, STAN plans to utilize Google’s backing to enhance moderation using AI. Currently, 70% to 80% of moderation on STAN is handled by AI, with the rest managed by a human team. The startup aims to further reduce human involvement in moderation by leveraging AI. Additionally, STAN intends to provide AI-powered toolkits for creators, including avatar and meme production tools, as well as quick reply and chat filtering features.
STAN is not the first Indian startup to receive funding from Google’s AI Futures Fund; Toonsutra, a startup using AI for an immersive comic-reading experience, holds that distinction. Google has invested over $5.5 billion in India to date, including in startups such as Toonsutra, STAN, Pixxel, and Adda 24X7.
Although the app is currently geo-restricted to India, STAN still sees 5%–6% of its engagement coming from users abroad. Over the next year, the startup plans to expand internationally, starting with the Indian subcontinent, and later targeting Southeast Asia and Latin America. The platform was profitable for a few months but has chosen to invest in growth. STAN aims to achieve profitability in 2027 and currently employs about 40 people, of whom less than 30 work in product engineering.
