In an industry where male customers dominate product use, gaming startup AviaGames’ two female co-founders, Ping Wang and Vickie Yanjuan Chen, just announced they had raised $40 million to continue their mission of creating a top global game competition platform that makes gaming inclusive of everyone. The two women entrepreneurs founded their mobile, skill-based gaming startup in 2017 and by 2019 they launched the Pocket7Games gaming platform that has become phenomenally successful.
“The majority of competitive games today cater to male audiences and core gamers, and almost all casual games on the market are designed for players to play against AI,” said Vickie Chen, founder and CEO of AviaGames. “We know the gaming universe is much broader than that. We aim to provide entertainment value for everyone to enjoy a couple minutes a day to compete with other real players with a more accessible, easy in, easy out approach. Regardless of gender or gaming experience, we’re matching people with similar skill sets to engage in friendly competition and get paid for their winning results.”
The platform draws in a diversity of users offering 10+ unique games linked to a single membership and wallet system. Players enjoy a range of games as the system allows players to switch among casino, puzzle, action, card, math and brain games seamlessly.
In just eighteen months Pocket7Games with its Bingo Clash became the #1 free casino game in the Apple App Store over the last 4 months while consistently being ranked as top 5 among all free games. It has also hosted over 100 million tournaments monthly and distributed over $400 million in prize money in the United States alone.
The skill-based tournament structure and the ability to compete and win cash prizes exploded Pocket7Games GMV run rate, growing it 21x to $836 million since January 2020. Players spending an average of 40 minutes on the platform each day has been a major factor in the platform’s success.
Now with $40 million in hand AviaGames plans to expand its current 90+ team to 130 with a focus on hiring engineers and data scientists. They will accelerate player acquisition as it develops new games on its platform.
The founders also expanded the role of influencers in the company. Hany Nada, co-founder of ACME Capital, joined AviaGames’ board of directors. His firm was joined by Washington Harbour Partners and Powerhouse Capital in the latest round that included earlier investors Makers Fund and Galaxy Digital.
“Vickie and Ping have incredible gaming experience, are in tune with what consumers want and are creating compelling, interactive games that get people from a wide range of demographics engaged and coming back for more. They’re making gaming what it should be: fun, competitive and engaging,” said Nada. “They have created an inclusive gaming environment with a focus on long term player engagement.”
Starting a gaming business in a male dominated industry is no small feat for women entrepreneurs who in general have great difficulty finding outside funding. Wang and Yanjuan Chen fast tracked their success through a combination of education, gaming experience and personal drive. Their vision was grand and they were not thinking “small business”.
Wang graduated from Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business in 2012 and began her career in gaming as an intern at Ubisoft and then joined Konami Gaming, Inc. where she became Senior Product Marketing Manager that was followed by her co-founding New Code.
Vickie Yanjuan Chen attended both the undergraduate and MBA program at Cornell University. She became General Manager at both Changyou.com (US) LLC and SNK Ad, Inc. followed by her joining Wang as co-founder of New Code.
The team put together a gaming model that would diversify players. Unlike its competitors Pocket7Games caters to everyday casual players by offering a diverse range of free games, including tournaments and mini-games, to win cash prizes. These free benefits are as much as 2X higher than any other competitor’s product.
They used AI to increase players gaming time by accurately matching players with similar skill value levels to compete against each other. This is an important feature in that it gives each player an equal opportunity to win because they are competing within the same level of the same game.
The two women entrepreneurs have positioned AviaGames to have a very bright future, according to market research firm GlobalData that projects mobile gaming to reach $272 billion this year. But, timing also had a role in the startup’s success as the pandemic drove consumers online resulting in a massive adoption of gaming.
The co-founders vision of a platform having diverse base of gaming players fit perfectly into the unique needs emerging from the pandemic. Families became housebound for extended periods of time and finding a variety of entertainment became critical to spending so much time together.
