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Sony (NYSE:SONY) has made an undisclosed investment in African gaming startup Carry1st and is exploring partnerships on new commercial opportunities, CNBC reported citing Carry1st.
The Cape Town, South Africa-based company received the investment from Sony Innovation Fund venture arm, the report added.
The deal is a strategic investment which will see the two companies collaborate on several commercial opportunities. For now, the two companies are in the “exploratory stages” of that collaboration.
Carry1st’s Co-Founder and CEO Cordel Robbin-Coker said discussions with Sony Innovation Fund started about eight to nine months ago, and that his pitch to Sony was that Africa is the next big market to find growth in video games.
“We believe very firmly that there is an incredibly underrated console opportunity in Africa,” Robbin-Coker noted citing countries such as Nigeria, Morocco and Algeria as places where console adoption is rising, according to the report.
One aspect of Carry1st’s collaboration with Sony was about helping the Tokyo-based company expand PlayStation’s footprint in Africa.
Sony forecast it would sell a record 25M PlayStation 5 units in its fiscal year 2023, which would mark the best year for any PlayStation console in history, the report added.
Carry1st works with companies like Activision — owned by Microsoft (MSFT), Supercell and Riot Games — owned by Tencent’s (OTCPK:TCEHY) (OTCPK:TCTZF) — to bring Western game franchises such as ‘Call of Duty: Mobile‘ and ‘Valorant’ to Africa.
Sony’s investment in Carry1st marks the first financial pledge of Sony Innovation Fund: Africa, the company’s new flagship African venture fund, which was unveiled in October 2023 to invest in early-stage startups in Africa’s entertainment industry, the report noted.
Sony Ventures Corporate, Sony’s venture arm, had initially allocated $10M to its Africa fund.
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