Google has backed STAN, an Indian social gaming platform that connects gamers with creators, communities, and publishers.

Google’s investment comes as part of an $8.5 million equity funding round, which also saw investment from Japanese gaming giants Bandai Namco Entertainment, Square Enix, and Reazon Holdings. Aptos Labs and King River Capital, as well as existing backers General Catalyst and GFR Fund, also participated. Google joined the round via its AI Futures Fund, which launched in May to support startups building with its AI tools.

STAN, headquartered in Singapore, is trying to position itself as a gaming community platform to rival Discord, but its approach to the market is quite different. STAN lets users earn in-app currency called “Gems” by winning games like Krafton’s Battlegrounds Mobile India, Garena’s Free Fire Max, Minecraft, Call of Duty, or casual titles like Ludo and Snakes & Ladders.

The app also lets creators set up chat rooms called Clubs, which are channels tailored for each game on the platform. While anyone can join these Clubs, they need to pay a social currency to access the “gaming experiences” that creators offer. The startup takes a commission from these transactions.

The primary attraction seems to be the in-app currency, however, as it can be redeemed for vouchers on various e-commerce platforms like Amazon, PhonePe, and Flipkart. Users can also earn currency via referrals, a spin-to-win wheel, and daily rewards.

It appears STAN’s monetization model is what sets it apart: Users can earn rewards through interactions, unlike on Discord, where chatting or participating in communities doesn’t earn users much, apart from clout.

Nonetheless, STAN wants to shadow Discord. The company claims it has already garnered over 25 million downloads on the Play Store and App Store altogether, and it has around 5.5 million monthly active users.

“STAN is the hangout place for gamers. It’s a place where gamers come and make friends, play with each other, talk to each other, sort of a fusion of social and gaming,” said Parth Chadha, co-founder and CEO of STAN, in an interview.

Chadha credits the platform’s features for its traction so far. Initially, creators had to contact the company’s team to start streaming, but last year, the startup opened the platform to user-generated content, allowing anyone to go live. That shift helped drive both downloads and engagement, the CEO said.

STAN also works with game publishers, studios, and developers, including Krafton, Garena, and Roblox, who pay the startup to connect them with gamers and creators on the platform.

Chadha told TechCrunch that in the past two quarters, nearly 100 game publishers, studios, and developers have joined the platform, and it is bringing more than 20 on board each month.

“That is turning into a very interesting business stream as we speak,” he said.

Looking ahead, STAN plans to leverage Google’s backing to use AI to improve moderation.

Currently 70% to 80% of moderation on STAN is already handled by AI, Chadha said. A human moderation team manages the rest, but the startup plans to reduce that further by using AI.

Additionally, STAN aims to bring AI-powered toolkits for creators, including the ability to produce avatars and memes, as well as tools for quick replies and filtering out chats.

“There are a lot of interesting plug-and-play models, which we and the Google team are working together to leverage and scale the business,” he stated.

STAN isn’t the first Indian startup to be backed by Google’s AI Futures Fund. That distinction goes to Toonsutra, a startup using AI to power an immersive comic-reading experience.

Google confirmed to TechCrunch that it has invested over $5.5 billion in India to date, including in startups Toonsutra, STAN, Pixxel, and Adda247.

Although STAN’s app is currently geo-restricted to India, the platform still sees 5% to 6% of its engagement coming from users abroad, who often access it using Indian phone numbers and accounts. Over the next year, the startup plans to expand internationally, starting with the Indian subcontinent, and will later target Southeast Asia and Latin America.

The startup was profitable for a few months, the CEO said, but decided to spend some money to scale. Now it aims to achieve profitability in 2027, he added.

Currently, the startup employs about 40 people; less than 30 of them work in product engineering.

With this raise, STAN’s total equity funding now stands at around $15 million.