Carry1st

Country: South Africa

Founded: 2018

Team Size: 100+

Platforms: Mobile, Web, Digital Marketplace

Status: Active

Overview

Founded in 2018, Carry1st is Africa’s leading games publisher and digital commerce platform. Originally launched as a mobile game developer, the company evolved into a full-stack publishing solution offering marketing, distribution, payments, and community infrastructure tailored to African markets.

Its proprietary Pay1st payments integration and Carry1st Shop marketplace enable monetisation across low credit-card-penetration regions. The company works with global publishers, including Activision and supports African studios through accelerators and ecosystem initiatives.

Key Platforms & Initiatives

Pay1st (payments infrastructure)
Carry1st Shop (online marketplace)
Carry1st Tribe (450k+ community members)
Tribe Campus (20,000+ students across universities)

Games

Carry1st's own published titles include:

Mergedom: Home Design & Merge
Mancala Adventures
Mine Rescue!

Intelligence

Carry1st has grown into Africa's dominant mobile games publisher and digital commerce platform, operating at the intersection of publishing, fintech, and community building in a market it has been systematically building infrastructure for since 2018.

The company's own data puts Africa's gaming market at $1.8 billion in 2024, driven by 32 million new gamers entering the ecosystem that year.

Funding & Backing

Total raised: Over $60 million since founding
Latest round: Undisclosed Series A, October 2024
Key investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), BITKRAFT, Google, Riot Games, Nas, and Sony Innovation Fund (Africa's inaugural investment from Sony's fund)
Capital stage: Growth

Strategic Model

Platform direction: Mobile-first with console expansion ambitions
Core products: Full-stack publishing (licensing, development, marketing, distribution); Pay1st payments platform; Carry1st Shop digital commerce marketplace
Monetisation approach: Pay1st offers 120+ local payment methods across 19 core markets in Africa and the Middle East, solving for low credit card penetration
Geographic focus: Pan-African operations with active MENA expansion
Positioning: Africa's leading publisher and infrastructure layer for global studios entering the continent

Active Partnerships & Products

Activision (Call of Duty: Mobile)
EA (FC Mobile)
Supercell
Riot Games
Stellar Gate Games (Blood Strike, MENA payment solutions, January 2025)
Audiomack (local payment solutions for music streaming)
Carry1st Africa Cup (official Call of Duty: Mobile World Championship qualifier for Africa)

Performance Signals

Surpassed 100 employees across 28+ countries; currently approximately 139 to 175 employees depending on the source and time of measurement
Named to Forbes' Top 30 Companies for Remote Jobs in 2024 and Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies 2024
Carry1st Tribe community exceeds 450,000 members with 200+ tournaments hosted
Tribe Campus connected over 20,000 university students across Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya
Publicly endorsed by senior executives at its own partners and investors, including Riot Games' VP of International Publishing, Call of Duty: Mobile's Head, and general partners at a16z, Sony Ventures, and BITKRAFT

Key People

Cordel Robbin-Coker - CEO and Co-founder
Lucy Hoffman - Co-founder and VP
Tinotenda Mundangepfupfu - Co-founder