WestBridge exits IPO-bound Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed gaming startup Nazara in secondary transaction

Monetary advisory agency Plutus Wealth Administration LLP and its associates have purchased shares value Rs 500 crore in Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed cellular gaming startup Nazara Technologies. The shares have been bought from Nazara’s early investor WestBridge Ventures’ non-public fairness fund WestBridge Ventures II Funding Holdings in a secondary transaction to offer latter the entire exit from the gaming firm that had developed well-liked video games similar to World Cricket Championship, Chhota Bheem Race, Motu Patlu Race, and so on. WestBridge Ventures had put round Rs 22.6 crore in Nazara and obtained gross sales consideration of round Rs 1000 crore from its funding.

“We imagine gaming shall be a distinguished type of leisure and can do effectively within the subsequent decade. We imagine that Nazara is well-placed to leverage on the huge accessible alternative,” stated Arpit Khandelwal, Accomplice, Plutus Wealth Managing in a press release. With the most recent deal, Nitish Mittersain who heads Nazara Applied sciences stated the corporate is seeing Plutus as a ‘long run investor’ within the firm. The secondary exit has come forward of the corporate’s deliberate IPO this yr.

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Aside from Jhunhunwala, who had put Rs 182 crore in 2017, Nazara had raised funding from IIFL Asset Administration, Sequoia Capital, and others previously. Nazara had additionally invested greater than Rs 300 crore in gaming and associated startups previously 5 years. The corporate had made investments and acquisitions in a number of gaming verticals similar to esports, edutainment, infotainment, fantasy sports activities, multiplayer video games like carrom and cellular cricket video games, and so on to construct a community within the interactive gaming and sports activities section in India and expanded to different geographies together with Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa, and so on.

India’s gaming sector had a market worth of round Rs 6,200 crore in 2019 and was more likely to develop to greater than Rs 25,000 crore by 2024 whereas the variety of individuals employed within the sector is anticipated to be greater than 40,000, in response to Statista. Alternatively, cellular gaming’s market worth was anticipated to hit round Rs 2965.4 crore market by 2022 whereas the variety of cell phone players in India was anticipated to be roughly 62.8 crores by 2020.