South African mobile gaming and web3 startup, Carry1st has raised $27M in the latest funding round led by BITKRAFT Ventures, a gaming focussed VC firm with participation from American VC Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) (recently backed Asimov, Flow) TTV Capital, Alumni Ventures, Lateral Capital, Kepple Ventures, and Konvoy.

Using the funds, the Cape Town-based mobile games publisher will develop, license, and publish new games as well as expand Pay1st, its monetisation-as-a-service offering. The announcement comes one year after raising $20M in a Series A extension round last January 2022 from a16z, Avenir, Google, and others.

Founded by Cordel Robbin-Coker, Lucy Hoffman, and Tinotenda Mundangepfupfu in 2018, Carry1st develops social games and interactive content across Africa. The company began as a game studio and later launched games. Further, through Pay1st, its proprietary payment system, and an online marketplace, the African company develops, licenses, and publishes games.

Basically, Carry1st is building financial infrastructure to connect the various payment systems across Africa and open up the market to game studios and other publishers that want to release games in the region. The startup is solving for the biggest bottlenecks in the region: accessibility and distribution.

Hence, operating at the intersection of games, fintech, and web3, its mission is to scale high-quality content in frontier markets by solving hard problems.Last year, the company partnered with Riot Games to pilot local payments for the Company’s games in Africa. To reiterate, Riot Games is the developer and publisher behind League of Legends, VALORANT, Teamfight Tactics, and among others.

The company has also grown its revenue over the past twelve months and signed partnerships to accelerate its growth in 2023 and beyond. Game titles like Call of Duty: Mobile, Mine Rescue, and SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off have been scaled by the company.