Nigeria Gaming Company Kuluya Ltd on Verge of Signing Big Mobile Deal

For a company that is less than two years, Lagos based gaming company Kuluya Ltd is now valued at $2 Million after injection of some private capital. The company has developed more than one hundred games with African themes and names like “bush meat”, “okada”, naija drone” and “drycleaner pickin.”

Kuluya Ltd was one of the first start-ups in Africa that introduced online gaming as a viable business model in an industry that is already worth billions of dollars globally. Their games can be played freely on their website .

 Lakunle Ogungbamila is the 29 year old internet entrepreneur and CEO of Kuluya Ltd. As the company prepares to sign a breakthrough deal a world renowned mobile company that will add their games on its platform, Francis Ngwa caught up with him for a brief chat

Excerpts:

Kuluya Ltd is playing itself into internet history in Africa

Q. You have completely re-branded your website from the one you had six months ago. Why was this necessary?

A

The rebranding was based on feedback from our users. From a functionality standpoint, we decided to focus more on the actions our users perform more on the website. We make those actions easier to access and understand. Regarding the aesthetics though, we just made the site more modern with a flat and simpler interface redesign.

Q. What will you say is the most successful game you have developed?

A

At the moment, the most successful game we have online is the Ole (thief) game. It is very popular with our online users partly because of the ease of play and the humour within the game play.

Q. Your company appears to be growing in value by the day and I understand the company is now valued at $2 million dollars? what will you say is the reason for this massive interest in your games and brand name?

A

Back in march, we had investment from some private individuals that increased the worth of our company and its present valuation is $2 Million. The interest in what we do comes from the uniqueness of our value proposition. We started an industry that did not exist in Africa but is worth billions of dollars globally. There are lots of derivative content we can get from African stories and experiences that can make for very compelling gaming narratives. We are exploiting this unique opportunity and investors seem to understand the potential of this.

One of the games

Q. I understand you have some big projects and possible partners in the wings. Can you talk a bit about that?

A

We would be launching some mobile titles soon with some telecommunications companies and also one or two mobile device manufacturers. This would all be revealed in a few weeks as soon as we conclude preliminary discussions with the companies.

Q. With such massive growth in a short time, where do you think kuluya will be in the next five years?

A

That is a tricky question, considering the enormity of the gaming landscape around the world. The gaming industry in Africa is still at its infancy and there is no telling the direction in which it would grow. In 5 years, the plan for us is to be a game development outfit in Africa with global recognition. We plan to have grown our revenue stream enough to compete with renowned  game publishing companies like King.com and Zynga. 

 You can read an earlier interview we did with Lakunle here

Fun group cartoon of Kuluya Ltd team