Nodwin Gaming raises $28 million in funding from Nazara, Sony, Krafton

According to a regulatory filing by Nazara, the funding round values Gurgaon-based Nodwin Gaming at $325 million pre-money, and $349 million post-money. In addition to Nazara, Krafton and JetSynthesis are existing shareholders in Nodwin Gaming.

Nazara said in its regulatory filing that the Rs 232 crore also includes a secondary sale component, through which the founding investors of Nodwin Gaming will transfer shares worth Rs 34.76 crore to Nazara.

Nazara also said that following the conclusion of the deal, it will hold 52.71% stake in Nodwin Gaming on a non-dilutive basis.

Nodwin Gaming’s co-founder and managing director Akshat Rathee said the fresh capital will be used for making acquisitions to grow the intellectual property (IP) portfolio, and to expand to emerging markets. The company provides esports and online gaming offerings, and has presence across South Asia, Singapore, West Asia and Turkey.

“We have been able to exhibit a revenue CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 68% over the last two years in a tumultuous market. We have managed this growth while being able to maintain profitability in our business and gain a global dominant position in mobile esports,” Rathee said.

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During the year ended March 2023, Nodwin Gaming recorded a turnover of Rs 381 crore, up from Rs 211 crore in FY22, and Rs 136 crore in FY21.“As we migrate to the next phase of our evolution, we would like to build a global company that is a significant thought leader and the largest player in the emerging market space. We believe that the confluence of gaming, esports and youth culture are colliding extremely fast and we would like to continue to build our value proposition as a sports media company (with a focus on esports) to this target group by focussing on the timeshare of their mindshare as the key growth metric,” Rathee added.

The company had last raised $22.5 million from Krafton, which is the publisher of popular mobile game PUBG, at a valuation of $135 million.