Holding The Aces

Live online rummy proves a moneyspinner for this company.

Deepak Gullapalli had a feeling that the cards before him held his future. He liked playing rummy and many a time as a Master’s student in Middlesex University, London, Gullapalli and his friends unwound with a game in the evenings. They were also online gaming junkies. It didn’t take him long to put two and two together and end up with an idea for an online portal for rummy. So in 2005, Gullapalli quit his internship at a consultancy, and came to India to set up Ace2three.com, making it the first portal for rummy in India.

Today, with 600,000 registered users, the portal owned by Head Infotech expects to clock Rs 25 crore in revenues this year. “We have tried to create the same user experience online as one would find offline,” says Gullapalli. About 8,000-10,000 tournaments per day are played on the website with an average 15,000 players logging in. The stakes: cash prizes of up to Rs 15,000 per day.

Though the Hyderabad-based company has a posh address today, it started in a small 100 sq ft room on the terrace of Gullapalli’s Hyderabad residence, where he and his two software developer friends started their “small project.”

Starting Trouble

The initial plan was to sell the game on CDs, pitting players against the computer. But a game where one played against the computer was difficult because it involved use of sophisticated software. Also, Gullapalli realised that rummy is more fun when playing against live players. So the partners worked on an online version where players could play each other over a network.

The Ace2three team built a basic prototype for two players in 2006 that they later upgraded to a multiplayer game. But there were still no plans to go commercial. “We didn’t have a revenue model then as it was only a play-for-fun portal,” he says.

The three friends had invested Rs 30 lakh but the money was starting to dry up. So in 2007, they started a subscription model where for Rs 200 per month players could log in for a game. But it met with little success. The slow internet connections, frequent disconnections and the game itself crashing added to their woes, says Gullapalli.

A loan of Rs 30 lakh from investors at mol.com, solved their money problems in 2007. And two years later, they received a fresh injection of close to Rs 1 crore from an angel investor. This funding brought stability to the business.

Yet another fillip to the growth plans came from an investment of Rs 7 crore by Matrix Partners in 2010.

With this they moved their server to Chennai from the UK to reduce the lag time (the time taken by the server to respond to commands given on the computer), although costs increased by 50%. “From 50,000 users in 2009, we’ve been growing 20-30% month on month,” says Gullapalli.

To handle the growing user base, the company plans to add more servers to the six it has currently. The company can now handle up to 10,000 users simultaneously. In the next two years, the addition of more servers will allow up to 50,000 players to access games simultaneously.

About 70-80% of the users of Ace2three.com, play for fun, while a small percentage of them play for cash (between Rs 2,000 and Rs 5,000). Only 20% of the players take part in cash tournaments where the players have a prize pool, Ace2three charges a 10% fee—the site’s sole source of revenue. The tournaments can have a minimum of two and a maximum of 1,000 players. The lowest prize pool for a tournament is Rs 100.

All users are given an Ace2three virtual wallet and chips. They settle dues via credit cards or bank accounts. Unlike other online portals, the gaming site does not have any advertising revenues. “We don’t want the customer’s focus to be away from the website,” says Gullapalli.

On The Cards

Avnish Bajaj, CEO, Matrix Partners, believes the market for online gaming is huge. “Our research shows that almost 100 million have played rummy [offline],” he says. “Currently Ace2three has penetrated less than 5% of the market, so they have a huge market ahead of them. And for any nascent industry, 5-10% is good penetration,” he adds.

Though there are plenty of competitors like Games 24X7, rummy.com, zapak.com and ibibo, Ace2three is confident of growth.

To attract more users, the portal is planning to introduce more regional variants of rummy along with other games of skill like Bridge. With these new offerings, they hope to hit the 1.5 million registration mark by March 2012. Then, revenue will be Rs 50-60 crore by FY12-13.

In 2012, Ace2three intends to design games for Facebook and launch apps for the iPhone and Android. As they scale up, more challenges are bound to show, but the founders are confident that they are holding the right cards.

Comments

Kamma Cine Heroes

1) N.T.Rama Rao 2) Akkineni Nageswara Rao 3) Gattamaneni Krishna 4) Sobhan Babu (Uppu Sobhana Chalapathi Rao) 5) Gummadi Venkatwsara Rao 6) Maganti Murali Mohan 7) Manchu Mohan Babu 8) Kongara Jaggayya 9) Giri babu (Yerra Seshagiri Rao) 10) Sridhar Surapaneni 11) Madala Ranga rao 12) Nandamuri Bala Krishna 13) SaiChand Tripuraneni 14) Akkineni Nagarjuna 15) Daggubati Venkatesh 16) Gadde Rajendra Prasad 17) Raja Sekhar (Kasukurthi) 18) Daggubati Raja 19) Bhagya Raj 20) Nandamuri Hari Krishna 21) Veeramachineni Jagapathi Babu 22) Meka Srikanth 23) Vadde Naveen 24) Tottempudi Venu 25) Gattamaneni Mahesh Babu 26) Junior. N.T.R 27) Sivaji Sontineni 28) Nandamuri Taraka Ratna 29) Nandamuri Kalyanaram 30) Yarlagadda Sumanth 31) Tottempudi Gopi Chand 32) Manchu Vishnu Vardhan 33) Manchu Manoj 34) Edara Naresh 35) Edara Aryan Rajesh 36) Ram Pothineni 37) Myneni Sarvanand 38) Daggubati Rana 39) Akkineni Naga Chaitanya 40) Nani (Ghanta Naveen Kum...

Kamma Movie Directors

List of Kamma Movie Ditrectors 1) Gudavalli Ramabrahmam 2) Akkineni Lakshmi Vara Prasad (LV Prasad) 3) Kovelamudi Bapayya 4) Veeramachineni Madhusudhana Rao 5) Kovelamudi S.Prakasa Rao 6) Kolli Pratyagatma 7) G.Sambasiva Rao 8) Tammareddy Krishnamurthy 9) Mannava Balayya 10) Tatineni Prakasa Rao 11) Tatineni Rama Rao 12) Tatineni Prasad 13) Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao 14) Gutta Ramineedu 15) Kolli Hemambaradhara Rao 16) Uppalapati Visveswara Rao 17) Tripuraneni Maharadhi 18) Tripuraneni Gopichand 19) Tottempudi Krishna 20) Madala Ranga Rao 21) Siva Nageswara Rao 22) Uppalapati Narayana Rao 23) P.Sarat 24) A.Mohan Gandhi 25) Bezawada Gopal 26) T.Kranthi Kumar 27) Maganti Vijaya Bapineedu 28) Tammareddy Bharadwaj 29) Akkineni Kutumba Rao 30) K.Vasu 31) Edara VV Satyanarayana 32) Muppalaneni Siva 33) Yalamanchili VS Chowdary 34) Theja Jasti 35) Sreenu Vytla 36) Koduri Srisaila Sri Rajamouli 37) Vemulapalli Srikanth 38) AS Ravikumar Chowdary 39)...

THE MAN AND HIS LEGACY A portrait of PSG Govindasamy Naidu

Great legacies have mostly had humble beginnings. But, they have all been ignited by a grand dream. One such simple dream that has enriched generations in this entire region is the legacy of the PSG family and its institutions. Coimbatore today is known nationally for its industries and educational institutions, which were founded and patronised by its enterprising people. If one were to go into the past to study the origin of the early industries and educational institutions, the PSG legacy will weave a beautiful story. The founder The P.S.G. family, belonging to the Kammavar sect of the Naidu community, traces its history to Periya Veedu Venkatarama Naidu in the later part of the 18th or the beginning of the 19th centuries. The letter `P' in P.S.G. is derived from Periya Veedu, `S' after Sama Naidu, the third son of Venkatarama Naidu, and `G' after Govindadamy Naidu, the second son of Sama Naidu. The Origin of the family could be traced to its forbear Sri Venkatarama Nai...

LRG Naidu - A Socially Responsible Entrepreneur - Donar

Lakshminaickenpalayam Ramaswamy Govindasamy Naidu ( 1894 - 1970 ) was born as the fourth child to Ramaswamy Naidu and Chinnasamy Ammal on the 7 th of January 1894. L.R.Govindasamy Naidu was popularly known as LRG Naidu and he was an entrepreneur with a vision which encompassed several aspects of commerce and social life. He was closely associated with the Industrial Scientist GD Naidu from his early days. LRG Naidu married Ranganayaki Ammal and couple made Tirupur their home from the year 1924. The couple was blessed with four dynamic sons and a daughter Vijayalakshmi who was married to V.N.Ramachandran of Premier Mills. It was from Tirupur that he grew from good to great and he ensured that his enterprises and policies were built to last. His Vijayalakshmi Motor Service,City Mofussil Transports and Tirupur Karur Transports were headquartered at Tirupur and the other bus company Madura Public Conveyance from his stable had 40 buses and the operations where centered around D...

A road named after Veerasamy Naidu in Singapore

Veerasamy Road - Little India/ Singapore Veerasamy Road was renamed twice in its history; it was originally called Inche Lane, and was renamed Jalan Tambah in 1910. In 1927, the road was renamed again as Veerasamy Road, in honour of Dr N. Veerasamy Naidu (1865-1926), one of Singapore’s first Indian doctors and a leader in the local Indian community. Dr N Veerasamy Naidu was born in 1864. He was the son of Narayanasamy Naidu and Ramanuja Ammal. He learned Tamil from the age of four from his grandfather, Kuppusamy Naidu. He studied English at the Raffles School in Singapore and first worked at the lawyer’s office of Mr Cook. Unsatisfied in his job and drawn to the study of medicinal herbs, he decided to pursue an education in medical science and eventually worked in a hospital owned by Govindasamy Naidu. He set up his own clinic called Indian Dispensary in Rochor Road and derived effective scientific and traditional treatments for a variety of new diseases. He was the Presid...

List of Kamma Cine Heroes (Updated)

List of Kamma Movie stars: 1) Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao 2) Akkineni Nageswara Rao 3) Gattamaneni Krishna 4) Sobhan Babu (Uppu Sobhana Chalapathi Rao) 5) Gummadi Venkatwsara Rao 6) Maganti Murali Mohan 7) Manchu Mohan Babu 8) Kongara Jaggayya 9) Giri babu (Yerra Seshagiri Rao) 10) Sridhar Surapaneni (Mutyalamuggu fame) 11) Madala Ranga rao 12) Nandamuri Bala Krishna 13) SaiChand Tripuraneni 14) Akkineni Nagarjuna 15) Daggubati Venkatesh 16) Gadde Rajendra Prasad 17) Raja Sekhar (Kasukurthi) 18) Daggubati Raja 19) Bhagya Raj 20) Nandamuri Hari Krishna 21) Veeramachineni Jagapathi Babu 22) Meka Srikanth 23) Vadde Naveen 24) Tottempudi Venu 25) Gattamaneni Mahesh Babu 26) Junior. N.T.R 27) Sivaji Sontineni 28) Nandamuri Taraka Ratna 29) Nandamuri Kalyanaram 30) Yarlagadda Sumanth 31) Tottempudi Gopi Chand 32) Manchu Vishnu Vardhan 33) Manchu Manoj 34) Edara Naresh 35) Edara Aryan Rajesh 36) Ram Pothineni 37) Myneni Sarvanand 38) Daggubati Rana...

L.G. Varadarajulu founder of ELGI Group (Asia's largest manufacturer of air compressors)

L.G. Varadarajulu (December 15, 1928 - May 19, 2010) was born to legendary businessman LRG Naidu and Ranganayakiammal on December 15, 1928 in Kalangal. After completing his studies in automobile engineering at the Arthur Hope's College in Coimbatore, he joined his father's bus transport business in Tirupur. He started manufacturing of automobile garage equipment and air compressors in 1960. He served as the Chairman of the ELGI Group of Companies — Elgi Equipments, Elgi Rubber, Elgi Ultra Industries, and LG Balakrishnan & Bros. ELGI is today, the market leader and Asia's largest and world’s seventh-largest manufacturer of air compressors and automobile service station equipment. ELGI's products are used in a wide range of applications in areas ranging from mining, defence, transport, pharmaceuticals, power, oil, railways, chemicals, textiles, printing to ship building, paper, electronics, telecommunications, medical, food & beverages and plastics....

G.D.Naidu, first generation Kamma Industrialist

G. D. Naidu (Gopalswamy Doraiswamy Naidu) was an Indian Inventor and engineer who is sometimes referred as the Edison of India. He is credited in manufacturing the first electric motor in India. His contributions were primarily industrial and span the fields of electrical, mechanical, agricultural (Hybrid cultivation) and automobile engineering. First of all he is a scientist but he studied up to only third standard. Naidu was born on March 23rd , 1893 , in Kalangal, near Coimbatore. He began his transport business in 1920 , with the purchase of a passenger auto-coach. He drove it for the service between Pollachi and Palani. In a few years, his United Motor Service (UMS) owned the most efficient fleet of public transport vehicles in the country. In 1937, the first motor to be produced in India, was brought out from G D Naidu's UMS factory. He invented an electric razor - Rasant - that gave users far more shaves than other existing options, in the international market. Among his ot...

G.K. Devarajulu The textile city Architect of Coimbatore

The brothers who contributed substantially to the industrialisation of Coimbatore are G.K. Devarajulu and G.K. Sundaram . The sons of cotton merchant G.Kuppusamy Naidu, who also had a ginning unit, both evinced immense capability. Devarajulu, born in 1911, was a man with appetite for risks. He set up the Lakshmi Mills at the age of just 21. As the machinery for the cotton units were imported from Europe under the impression that those from Japan were substandard, Devarajulu visited the factory in Japan to study whether the machinery would suit Indian requirements. Consequently all the machinery for his unit were imported from Japan. He also introduced the administrative system he found good in Japanese units. When Devarajulu and Mr. Sundaram joined Textool as shareholders in 1940, the company produced its first ring frame. Devarajulu joined hands with R.Venkataswamy Naidu of Peelamedu to set up the South India Viscose for which he imported m...

Pharma Entrepreneur Chava Satyanarayana Joins Billionaire Ranks

India’s pharma sector, which has been in the spotlight during the pandemic, has just minted a new billionaire. Satyanarayana Chava , 60, founder and CEO of the $658 million (revenue) Laurus Labs —an integrated pharma and biotech company which makes everything from pharma ingredients to enzymes and proteins—saw his personal net worth cross $1.1 billion after shares of his company jumped this week. The stock has risen 176% in the past 12 months. Laurus Labs supplies pharma ingredients for drugs to treat HIV, cancer, asthma and diabetes. The company says that one out of three HIV-infected patients in low and middle income countries are taking meds with ingredients supplied by Laurus Labs. It has marquee clients, including some of the world’s big pharma players, who buy pharma intermediates, generics and contract manufacturing research services from Laurus. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021, the company recorded a 70% uptick in revenue and a 286% surge in net profit to 9.8 billion r...

Kammas World

Search This Blog