Ashneer Grover’s Third Unicorn To Venture Into Fantasy Cricket With CrickPe

BharatPe’s ousted cofounder and MD Ashneer Grover is venturing into the competitive fantasy sports arena with his latest venture Third Unicorn, having filed a trademark application for a fantasy cricket platform called CrickPe.

Documents filed with the government’s Trademark Registrar Office showed that CrickPe’s services include, “creating an online community for registered users to participate in the administration of sports competitions and fantasy sports competitions and related operations, voting, auctioning, coaching, play calling, contract negotiations, salary negotiations, player trades and player drafts.”

The trademark for the word ‘CrickPe’ and its logo was filed on January 28, 2023, and is currently being processed by the trademark authority, as per the documents filed by Third Unicorn. 

Besides this, CrickPe also has a website, but this is currently unfinished and contains plenty of dummy or placeholder text for sections such as the game’s features and the team behind the app. 

What Is Ashneer Grover’s CrickPe?

The CrickPe website indicates the existence of an app on Android and iOS, as well as some of the app’s features. 

Based on currently available information on CrickPe’s website, the game brings features such as competing with real cricketers as well as allowing users to reward cricketers directly for their performance on the field. 

Besides this, users can also compete with their friends on CrickPe, just as on other fantasy sports apps. 

It must be noted the company has not received the trademark for CrickPe yet. The Trademark Registrar’s Office has sent the application to Vienna Codification for now. 

For the uninitiated, Vienna Codification is applicable for a non-text trademark application that contains a logo or artwork. The moment a trademark application is filed, a Vienna code is assigned to it if the trademark encompasses a logo or figurative elements. 

The Vienna codification process is done by the registry, enabling trademark searches to be conducted for logos or artwork. Once this process is completed, there is still a long way to go in the registration process followed by an examination, formalities check, public caution and finally the registration.

Ashneer’s CrickPe comes about eight months after he first announced Third Unicorn in July 2022, registering the company with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) on July 6.

At a more personal level, the launch of CrickPe comes at a time when Ashneer Grover finds himself embroiled in two cases – one against BharatPe for alleged financial irregularities and defamation, and one against BharatPe cofounder Bhavik Koladiya over ownership of shares in the company.

According to the terms and conditions listed on CrickPe’s site, the app is being developed by NetSolutions India Private Limited, which incidentally also developed apps for BharatMove, the B2B retail tech company founded by Shwetank Jain, the brother of Ashneer’s wife Madhuri Jain Grover.

Interestingly, the CrickPe name is closely linked to BharatPe, which had already formally launched a trademark claim against PhonePe for the usage of the suffix ‘Pe’. It remains to be seen whether CrickPe also faces similar pushback over the suffix and given Grover’s former ties with BharatPe.

CrickPe Joins Crowded Fantasy Cricket Landscape

By all indications, Ashneer Grover’s CrickPe would compete with the likes of Dream11, MPL, Games24x7’s my11circle as well as a host of other fantasy sports startups in India. Most recently, Indian cricketer, Deepak Chahar announced his entry into the entrepreneurial space with the launch of the fantasy gaming platform Trade Fantasy Game.

But this is a super competitive space and customer acquisition is driven largely by high marketing spending something that has proven difficult for startups in the past few months. For instance, ShareChat pulled the plug on its fantasy gaming platform Jeet11, leading to the layoffs of 100 employees at the social media unicorn.

It remains to be seen where CrickPe gets the funds it would undoubtedly need for a wider launch, given that recently Grover publicly told VCs to steer clear of Third Unicorn, claiming that the company would only use “desi/self-earned capital.”