Stan’s roadmap includes expanding into Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America while aiming for company-wide profitability by FY27
India’s gaming industry reached a market size of USD 4.38 billion in 2025 and is forecast to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.8 per cent to USD 8.74 billion by 2030, according to Mordor Intelligence. Growth is being driven by affordable smartphones, inexpensive data and the rising popularity of social and esports formats. Within this expanding ecosystem, Bengaluru-based Stan is seeking to carve out a space by focussing on community-driven experiences rather than real-money gaming, which has recently come under tighter government regulation.
Founded in 2021, Stan has often been labelled “India’s answer to Discord.” Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Parth Chadha, however, resists such comparisons. “Stan is essentially a hangout place,” he said in an interview with Businessworld. “People wanted to make friends, play games, hang out. That sense of belongingness was missing across other platforms.”
The platform, according to Chadha, now has over 30 million installs, up from just one million in its first year. Over the past two years, it has recorded 25-fold user growth and a three-fold increase in revenues.
Fuel for Expansion
In August, Stan raised USD 8.5 million in funding from investors including Google, Bandai Namco and Square Enix. The company plans to use the capital for product development, team expansion and marketing. Its current workforce of 50 employees is expected to rise modestly to about 70, with recruitment focussed on design, engineering and product roles.
India will remain the priority market, but Stan is evaluating international opportunities in South-East Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. These regions, Chadha explained, share mobile-first usage patterns and a strong socialising culture around games. “India itself is huge, with around 50 million gamers, but we are looking at other geographies that show comparable socialising and creator economy patterns,” he said.
Monetisation Model
Stan relies on two revenue streams. The larger share comes from in-app purchases, where users buy “Stan passes” that can be used across the platform for social experiences, a model similar to cosmetic purchases in mainstream games. The second stream, accounting for about 20 to 25 per cent of revenues, comes from marketing and distribution partnerships with brands and gaming studios.
This second stream has a cross-border dimension. International studios from Japan, Korea and the Middle East are partnering with Stan to reach Indian gamers. “Since we have a large user base and creators with high reach, a lot of brands that target a similar audience want to promote on Stan,” Chadha explained.
Global Competition
Stan’s positioning has inevitably drawn comparisons with platforms such as Discord and Twitch, both of which dominate global gaming conversations. Chadha acknowledged their strengths but argued that they are not designed for India’s mobile-first user base. “Discord has been doing well in the esports PC market. But for casual and mid-core gamers in India, the user experience has not been up to the mark. We solve for the mobile gamer,” he said.
The platform also leans heavily on its creator economy. Unlike YouTube, where earnings are skewed towards a small number of large influencers, Stan emphasises broad-based monetisation. Around 35 to 40 per cent of creators on the platform earn revenue each month, with average earnings in the region of USD 1,000. “Rather than focusing on ten creators making USD 10,000 each, we aim for 100,000 creators making USD 500,” Chadha said.
This positioning reflects a wider challenge in India’s gaming ecosystem: how to translate rising engagement into sustainable monetisation, particularly outside of real-money gaming.
Artificial Intelligence at the Core
Artificial intelligence is central to Stan’s operations. Moderation, which Chadha described as a “day zero priority,” is now 95 per cent AI-driven. The system supports multiple Indian languages, with a small manual team handling exceptions.
Beyond moderation, Stan is working with Google AI to build creator-focussed tools. These include avatars, automated clipping of highlights and engagement features designed to reduce the time creators take to monetise their audience. The company has also built an ad-tech engine that uses AI to match gaming titles with relevant audiences on the platform.
Stan currently has a dedicated in-house AI team of seven to eight people. Chadha said the aim is to build tools that are both scalable and directly relevant to user engagement.
Regulation and Compliance
India’s recent online gaming bill bans real-money gaming while explicitly supporting esports and social gaming. The regulation has disrupted many companies operating on “money-in, money-out” models but has had no impact on Stan, which has never operated in that space.
“Stan has always stayed away from real-money gaming,” Chadha said. “The government’s recognition of esports and social gaming has placed us in a stronger position, especially compared to companies reliant on RNG models.”
This regulatory clarity has helped Stan sharpen its positioning, but it also raises the bar for sustainable growth without depending on quick monetisation models.
Blockchain Experimentation
Stan is also exploring the use of blockchain to create universal gamer profiles. The idea is to consolidate user data across games, enabling recognition of skills and time spent while allowing publishers to retain control over sensitive data.
“Blockchain as a technology is very powerful in enabling data sharing without compromising publishers’ business interests,” Chadha explained. The company is experimenting with zero-knowledge proofs as a way to build privacy-preserving gamer profiles that could form the basis of future loyalty and reward systems.
Profitability and Outlook
While specific financial figures remain undisclosed, Stan claims to be unit-level profitable and has had “a couple of profitable months” at the platform level. Company-wide profitability is being targeted by FY27.
The company’s growth, Chadha said, has been “double-digit month-on-month,” and the goal is to capture 5 to 10 per cent of the Indian gaming market.
Workplace and Workforce
Stan’s team is largely young, with an average employee age of around 27. Asked about debates around Generation Z employees, Chadha said generational stereotypes are overstated. “There are people who work hard and people who don’t, across every generation. We’ve had very creative and hardworking people in our team,” he said.
The company’s hiring strategy remains focussed on roles in design, product and AI, areas Chadha described as essential to keeping pace with the fast-changing demands of gamers.
For now, the company’s bet is on scaling responsibly, embedding AI deeper into its product and building a broader creator economy. Whether that will be enough to secure a lasting share of India’s USD 8.74 billion gaming market by 2030 remains an open question.
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