Startup Deep Dive : My11Circle — Parent Games24x7 raised $75M at a reported $2.5B valuation in 2022; My11Circle became IPL official fantasy partner

My11Circle is a cricket-led fantasy sports brand of Mumbai-based Games24x7 (operated by Play Games24x7 Pvt Ltd); figures below for funding and financials are the parent's, not the brand's.

This Startup Deep Dive explains what My11Circle does, how it makes money, who backs it, how it compares with rivals and what could go wrong, using publicly available information. It is educational and not investment advice. Last updated: October 2026.

My11Circle in Brief

  • What it is: My11Circle is an Indian Fantasy sports company based in Mumbai.
  • Who it serves: businesses, institutions, consumers, learners and public-sector buyers.
  • Fantasy sports platform launched in 2019, strongest in cricket.
  • Expanded to fantasy football and kabaddi.
  • Official fantasy sports partner for the IPL for five years (2024 season onward).
  • Funding: Parent Games24x7: $75M round in 2022 (total not found).

My11Circle Quick Facts

Company My11Circle
Founded 2019
Headquarters Mumbai
Founders Bhavin Pandya, Trivikraman Thampy
Sector Fantasy sports
Total funding Parent Games24x7: $75M round in 2022 (total not found)
Latest round Parent Games24x7: $75M in March 2022, led by Malabar India Fund with Tiger Global
Valuation Parent Games24x7: reported $2.5B (Inc42 calculated about $2.1B)
Website Not disclosed

Figures marked “reported” come from published reports and may differ between sources; “Not disclosed” means no reliable public figure was found.

What Is My11Circle?

My11Circle operates in the Fantasy sports space in India. Understanding a company like this starts with three questions: who is the customer, what painful problem is being solved, and why the solution is better than the alternatives. The sections below apply that lens to My11Circle.

  • Fantasy sports platform launched in 2019, strongest in cricket.
  • Expanded to fantasy football and kabaddi.
  • Official fantasy sports partner for the IPL for five years (2024 season onward).

The Origin Story of My11Circle

Every company starts from a noticed gap and a team willing to commit to closing it. Strong origin stories are specific: a clear problem, a founding team with relevant skills, and an early product that real customers could test. Founder-market fit, meaning the team’s lived experience or technical depth in the domain, tends to predict how fast a young company learns.

  • Founders: Bhavin Pandya, Trivikraman Thampy.
  • My11Circle is a vertical of Games24x7, founded in 2006 by Bhavin Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy, who met studying economics at NYU.
  • Launched in 2019 with Sourav Ganguly as brand ambassador.
  • Parent also runs RummyCircle (launched 2009).

Key Milestones and Challenges

No startup grows in a straight line. Early years usually involve slow adoption, product rewrites, hiring mistakes and funding gaps. In the Fantasy sports sector the common turning points are a first paying customer, a regulatory approval, a successful product demonstration or a funding round that lets the team invest ahead of demand. How a team responds to setbacks says more about resilience than any single headline.

  • 2019: My11Circle launched.
  • 2021: strong growth during IPL.
  • March 2022: parent raised $75M, became a unicorn.
  • 2023-24: became official IPL fantasy partner, displacing Dream11.
  • September 2025: media reports of large layoffs at parent after government ban on money-based online gaming.

My11Circle Funding and Investors

Funding history shows how much outside confidence a company has attracted and how long it can operate before needing more capital. Figures below are reported and may differ between sources; valuation figures are estimates unless the company has confirmed them.

  • 2011: Tiger Global, first institutional investor (parent).
  • About 2021: $18M raise (parent).
  • March 2022: $75M, Malabar India Fund lead, Tiger Global participating, at $2.5B (parent). Backers also include The Raine Group.

How Does My11Circle Make Money? (Business Model)

A business model describes who pays, how often and how much it costs to serve them. Strong models show repeat usage, improving margins with scale and acquisition channels that do not depend only on paid spend. Weak models show one-off sales, rising costs and growth that stops when spending stops. For companies selling to businesses, institutions, consumers, learners and public-sector buyers, sales cycles and contract size matter as much as headline growth.

  • Parent earns platform fees from contests, about 99% of operating income in FY23; the remainder is virtual items in freemium games.
  • Heavy marketing spend: advertising Rs 1,421 crore in FY23, 66% of expenses (parent).

The Numbers: My11Circle Financials

Financial figures show whether growth is turning into a self-sustaining business. Small and private companies often disclose little, so any number below is included only if it was found in public reporting.

  • Parent Games24x7 FY21: operating revenue Rs 1,556.7 crore, profit Rs 110 crore.
  • FY22: net loss Rs 282 crore (one source says Rs 230 crore, so reports differ).
  • FY23: operating revenue Rs 1,988 crore, net loss Rs 199 crore.
  • FY24/FY25 not found.

Market Opportunity for My11Circle

Market size is easy to exaggerate, so a useful approach separates the total market from the portion a company can realistically reach with its current product and distribution. The main forces behind demand in this sector are rising digital adoption, cloud and mobile penetration, growing enterprise technology spending, government digitisation programmes and a deep pool of engineering talent. Each of these widens the opportunity, but capital efficiency and execution decide who captures it.

  • Competes in India's real-money fantasy market, which was disrupted by the 2025 ban on money-based online gaming.

Technology and Product at My11Circle

Technology is rarely the whole moat, but it drives speed, cost and customer experience. A practical way to assess it is to separate the capability the company controls from the commodity infrastructure it rents. In this sector the important factors are product quality, data and integration depth, security, scalability and the speed of shipping improvements.

  • Parent uses AI modelling to understand user behaviour for targeting.

Team and Culture at My11Circle

Teams are the most important and least measurable asset of a young company. Look at how complementary the founders’ skills are, how deep the second layer of leadership is, and how the company hires and retains specialists. Culture shows up in small repeated behaviours: how quickly bad news travels upward and whether commitments to customers are kept.

  • Founders Bhavin Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy lead the parent.

My11Circle Competitors: Competitive Landscape

A fair competitive analysis names direct rivals, adjacent players who could move into the space, and the customer’s default alternative. Durable advantages include proprietary data or technology, licences and approvals, brand trust, switching costs and cost leadership.

Competitor How it differs
Dream11 Main rival.
MPL Named rival.
BalleBaazi Named rival.
Halaplay Named rival.

Risks and Challenges for My11Circle

  • 2025 government ban on real-money gaming and layoffs at parent.
  • Persistent losses at the parent through FY23.
  • High marketing costs.
  • Competition: low barriers to entry and well-funded rivals can compress pricing and slow growth.
  • Funding risk: technology businesses often burn cash before reaching profit and depend on investor appetite.

Risk is not a reason to avoid a company; it is a reason to price it correctly and to monitor the right indicators over time. Regulation in this sector is shaped by data protection rules under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, sector regulators, consumer protection law and IT rules.

My11Circle Growth Outlook: What to Watch

  • Key indicators: recurring revenue, customer retention, gross margin, customer acquisition cost and runway.
  • Funding position: Whether My11Circle can reach its next milestone before needing new capital.
  • Regulation: Changes from data protection rules under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, sector regulators, consumer protection law and IT rules.

Industry Context: Where My11Circle Fits

India's technology startup ecosystem is one of the largest in the world, supported by cheap data, a large base of smartphone users, digital public infrastructure and a deep engineering talent pool. Companies now build for education, software, mobility, logistics, agriculture, defence, media and more, selling both to Indian customers and abroad.

Durable technology companies usually combine a clear customer problem with repeatable distribution and disciplined unit economics. Growth funded only by spending tends to fade, while products that customers keep using and paying for build compounding advantages.

For readers new to this field, a useful habit is to separate announcements from evidence. A plan, a partnership or a funding headline describes intent, while a delivered product, a paying customer or an audited financial statement describes results. Comparing the two over time shows how reliably a company turns promises into outcomes.

Bull Case and Bear Case for My11Circle

An investment thesis is a short, testable statement of why a company could become far more valuable, together with what evidence would prove it wrong. The points below are general to this sector and are not forecasts for My11Circle.

Bull case

  • A large and growing base of digital users and businesses expands the addressable market.
  • Recurring revenue and strong retention can compound growth.
  • Selling into global markets widens the opportunity beyond India.

Bear case

  • Heavy competition can compress pricing and margins.
  • Dependence on external funding can force painful cost cuts.
  • Regulation or platform changes can disrupt a product quickly.

Lessons Founders and Investors Can Take from My11Circle

Studying a company in the Fantasy sports space offers lessons that go beyond any single firm. The points below are general lessons for the sector and are not claims about My11Circle.

  • Solving a clear, frequent customer problem matters more than adding features.
  • Retention and repeat usage are better health signals than sign-ups.
  • Disciplined spending extends runway and keeps options open when funding tightens.
  • Distribution, not just product quality, decides who wins in crowded markets.
  • Building trust through data protection and reliability is part of the product.

How to Evaluate My11Circle as a Startup

  • Customer clarity: Can My11Circle name its customer and the problem it solves in one sentence?
  • Evidence of demand: Look for repeat customers, signed contracts or measurable usage rather than announcements alone.
  • Economics: Check whether margins improve as volume grows.
  • Execution: Compare announced timelines with what has actually been delivered.
  • Funding runway: Estimate how long current capital lasts at the present spending rate.
  • Regulatory standing: Confirm required approvals are in place.
  • Customer concentration: Check whether a few customers account for most of the revenue.
  • Management depth: Look for experienced leaders beyond the founders and a stable core team.

The Takeaway

My11Circle is part of India’s growing Fantasy sports ecosystem. The useful lesson from studying it is the discipline of asking structured questions about customers, economics, advantage and resilience. Companies that answer them well, repeatedly and under pressure are the ones that endure. Readers should treat any single report, ranking or funding headline as one input among many, and should re-check key facts against recent company announcements. Because public information on young companies is often limited, patience in verifying claims is part of good analysis. Public sources can also describe the same company in different ways, so it is worth checking dates, definitions and whether a figure refers to revenue, total income or transaction value, and whether it covers one entity or a wider group, before drawing conclusions. Small differences in rounding, currency conversion or reporting periods can also change how a figure reads. Comparing the same figure across several recent reports helps show whether it is stable or has changed over time. This article is educational and is not investment advice.

  • Clear customers and repeat demand matter more than announcements.
  • Regulation and capital needs shape how fast a startup in this sector can grow.
  • Track a few leading indicators over time rather than one headline metric.

My11Circle FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

What is My11Circle?

My11Circle is a cricket-led fantasy sports brand of Mumbai-based Games24x7 (operated by Play Games24x7 Pvt Ltd); figures below for funding and financials are the parent's, not the brand's. It is profiled in the Startup Deep Dive series, which explains business model, funding, competitors and risks.

Who founded My11Circle?

My11Circle was founded by Bhavin Pandya, Trivikraman Thampy, and the company reports a founding year of 2019.

How much funding has My11Circle raised?

Parent Games24x7: $75M round in 2022 (total not found). Funding figures are reported and may differ between sources, so readers should check the latest company announcements.

How does My11Circle make money?

My11Circle earns revenue from its Fantasy sports products and services sold to businesses, institutions, consumers, learners and public-sector buyers. The exact revenue mix is described in the business model section and is not fully disclosed publicly.

Who are the competitors of My11Circle?

Reported rivals include Dream11, MPL, BalleBaazi, Halaplay. See the competitor comparison above for how they differ.

What are the main risks for My11Circle?

Main risks include competition: low barriers to entry and well-funded rivals can compress pricing and slow growth, funding and capital needs, competition and regulation by data protection rules under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, sector regulators, consumer protection law and IT rules. This is educational content, not investment advice.

Related Startup Deep Dives: SkyServe — Bengaluru startup running AI analytics onboard satellites | BalleBaazi — Raised a $4 million Series A in August 2019 from Snap Angel Tech and a Singapore-based investor. Browse the full Startup Deep Dive series.

Source

Source: Publicly available data, published reports, industry research, and other credible sources.

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