the jw marriott of mumbai on juhu beach offers a fleeting view of the sea between buildings and a little park the hotel has built on the sands is a joy for kids but staying holed up in the hotel for two days after you have landed in india for the first time in your life can be disorienting jill lennox marketing head of play it interactive a mobile gaming firm had just gone through that in the third week of august doing backtoback meetings at the hotels business centre naturally she was excited when her team prepared to visit a coffee shop in one of central mumbais busy neighbourhood we are going to lower parel one more meeting but at least i will be going out of the hotel lennox said lennox wasnt in india only to attend meetings on august 22 play it interactive announced it had raised 11 million in canada to fund an india focused business plan india is now central to play it interactives business strategy the company had been started up and is headquartered in calgary canada and offers clients fantasy gaming platforms to engage fans cofounder and president cory cleveland head of international business ray newal and head of technology jason faulkner were in mumbai with lennox they finalized their india team and also initiated talks with potential clients the company needed to find an office in mumbai and a house for newal and his family to move back to india from canada cleveland is a former investment banker newal is the founder and exceo of jigsee the video streaming app that was acquired in 2011 by vuclip play it interactive was founded in 2013 by cleveland and a few others in canada and raised one round of preseed funding in october 2013 games people play cleveland calls the product a fan engagement platform where indian media rights owners can engage with fans before and during an event the target is clearly the film industry and sports the aim is to get fans to spend more time on websites and media platforms and thereby increase viewership and visits play its revenues are linked to how long fans spend on different media cleveland explained how the company tested its fantasy gaming platform during the fifa world cup in brazil you could choose your 11member team out of the 22 players playing in a match and then the performance of the players was tracked through the match and you scored as per your choice the experience was then built up by taking the results onto social media platforms like facebook the team that works on product development is called the secret sauce team ten people will be based out of india working on the products says newal but what will the team aim at delivering to clients our goal is to engage fans asynchronously throughout the day with an experience that is simple enough for them to enjoy and be entertained by even if they