Matiks raises $10M to grow its math and puzzle game platform

Matiks, a two-year-old app out of India built around competitive math, logic, memory, and puzzle games, said Monday it raised $10 million in pre-Series A funding led by General Catalyst. Indian entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala joined the round alongside existing backers InfoEdge Ventures, Tanglin Venture Partners, and Untitled Ventures, bringing the startup’s total funding to more than $13.5 million.

The round follows a sharp jump in engagement: daily users climbed from 22,000 earlier this year to over 300,000 by September, when the app logged 2.2 million monthly active users. Founders Sudhanshu Bhatia, Mohan Kumar, and Sushant Timmapur built Matiks as a counterweight to algorithm-driven feeds. Bhatia, who has a background in competitive mental math and previously worked on anti-money-laundering strategy at American Express, said the team wanted brain games that compete with other entertainment for attention rather than feeling like a chore. “For the last 10 years, the platforms have made entertainment consumption easy, but much of it is brain slop,” Bhatia told TechCrunch.

Inside the app, players face off against bots or other users across math, puzzle, memory, and logic categories, and can take on quests for points, streaks, and unlocks. Matiks only began testing a subscription this month, covering game analysis and practice tools, alongside existing in-app purchases that let players skip challenges or boost streaks and XP. Most of its players are in India, but the startup says it has also gained traction in the U.S., South Korea, and Japan, and plans to localize for the latter two. It has also launched an experimental game-creation tool called Jelo that lets users build and share their own games, entering a space that already includes Google’s new platform, Playground.

General Catalyst partner Rahul Humayun pointed to the pace of product iteration and depth of user engagement — across features like duels, social tools, Snacc, and the new Jelo creation tool — as what drew the firm to back the 41-person startup, which plans to use the funding to expand into new markets.

Why it matters

Matiks is betting that competitive, skill-based games can pull users away from algorithmic, AI-flooded feeds — a wager that’s starting to attract serious venture backing as the startup pushes beyond its home market into the U.S. and Asia.