Game developer Nazara Technologies has filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) with market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

This makes Nazara the first Indian gaming technology company to move for a debut on the stock exchange.

A Mobile-gaming behemoth

Nazara was founded by Nitish Mittersain in 2000, while he was an undergraduate student. After getting derailed during the dot-com bust, Nazara steadily built market share by introducing new brands and acquiring other gaming startups.

Now, Nazara has undertakings in various gaming categories like WCC and CarromCash in mobile games, Kiddopia in gamified early learning, NODWIN and Sportskeeda in esports and esports media, and Halaplay and Qunami in skill-based, fantasy and trivia games.

It also holds the rights to develop mobile games based on popular characters like Chhota Bheem, Motu Patlu, Shikari Shambhu etc.,

A Second attempt

Earlier in 2018, the Mumbai-based startup had filed the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI, but didn’t go ahead with the launch due to unfavourable market conditions.

In the last two years, Nazara has made seven acquisitions and in December last year, raised ₹500 crore ($68 million) through a stake sale to Plutus Wealth Management.

It counts billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Plutus Wealth Management, IIFL Special Opportunities Fund, Seedfund2 International and Turtle Entertainment as its primary backers.

The regulatory filing shows that Nazara plans to offer 49,65,476 equity shares for sale, at a face value of ₹4 ($0.05) each.

Apart from India, the company also has presence across several emerging and developed gaming markets of Africa and North America.

Also read: Plutus Wealth management pays $68 million for a stake in Nazara Games

Skill-based mobile gaming platform Zupee has raised $10 million (₹73 crore) from WestCap Group and existing investor Matrix Partners India.

This is the second round of funding in the Gurugram-based startup within the last 12 months. In April last year, Zupee had raised $8 million (₹58 crore) from Matrix Partners India.

Live and Real

Zupee was founded by IIT Kanpur graduates Dilsher Singh Malhi and Siddhant Saurabh in 2018. It has 24×7 live tournaments of puzzles and quizzes, with topics ranging from Bollywood-Hollywood Q&A, Sports, Maths, Spellings, Hinglish and more.

Players can answer each question in a round, and based on the right answers and the time taken, they are rewarded with real money, transferred to their Paytm wallet.

In 2019, the company raised $1 million (₹7.3 crore) in seed funding from Smile Group, which incubated the startup.

Currently, the platform claims to have 100+ categories, 500+ topics and 2000+ live tournaments. It is available in both Hindi and English.

Also read: Plutus Wealth management pays $68 million for a stake in Nazara Games

Enhancing productive engagement

Commenting on the new investment, Dilsher Singh, co-ounder and CEO, Zupee, said “We have driven an exponential month-on-month growth this year. This fresh round of funding enables us to double down on our scaling efforts.”

“We remain committed to delivering a fantastic user experience for our rapidly expanding user community,” he said.

The company aims to provide its users connectivity, local-language content, information and productive engagement on its platform.

With this fresh capital, the startup will scale up the venture in all its verticals, focusing on improving user experience and expanding market reach.     

Also read: nCore Games will launch FAU-G on this Republic Day

nCore Games will release the much anticipated multiplayer game FAU-G on January 26^th. The game was introduced in September of last year by Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar.

FAU-G stands for Fearless and United Guards, and it was announced soon after the ban on the popular PUBG Mobile game. PUBG had become one of the most downloaded games in India, but was banned following the anti-China sentiment and privacy concerns arising after the border dispute between the countries.

A Republic day release

nCore Games is a Bengaluru based startup founded in 2018, which develops immersive multiplayer games and also publishes third party games through its India focused platform. Vishal Gondal, founder and CEO of smart wearables startup GOQii, is financially backing and serves as a strategic advisor to this company.

The game was originally planned for an October release, which was pushed to November, and now it is scheduled to drop on the Republic Day.

Pre-registration for the game started in December, and now it has close to 4 million (40 lakh) users registered. After it is launched, it can either be downloaded from the Google Play Store or gamers can directly download the APK file from the official website.

The first look poster and the brief promotional video suggests a setting at LAC in Ladakh. The game’s first level will be based on Galwan Valley.

A New Genre

Vishal Gondal, while announcing the release date, said FAU-G gaming has its own genre and isn’t similar to the banned battleground app PUBG. “There is a lot in store. We are talking to Indian phone manufacturers for embedding (pre-installing) the app into their phone,” he said.

nCore Games has promised to donate 20% of the revenue from the game to the Government’s Bharat Ke Veer Initiative.

Developers are expecting FAU-G to reach 20 crore (200 million) users by the end of this year.

Also read: Plutus Wealth management pays $68 million for a stake in Nazara Games