Nazara Technologies, India’s leading interactive gaming and sports media company, has announced today about its acceleration of investments and commitments of up to USD 20 Million in startups in India, Africa and Middle East in 2020.
Being one of the biggest investors and scaling platforms for startups in the gaming and sports ecosystem in India, the company has already undertaken transactions worth USD 50 Million in 13 startups in the last two years and has been the most aggressive investor in the gaming and sports ecosystem in India.
Nazara aims to act as a catalyst to further expedite growth of gaming; esports and sports content across emerging markets. Nazara plans to infuse risk and growth capital in the selected startups besides offering mentorship via the founders of the companies from Nazara’s current portfolio of investments and Nazara’s leadership team.
Nazara Technologies CEO Manish Agarwal commented, “Looking at the explosive growth in the interactive entertainment and sports ecosystem, Nazara has decided to up its aggression on investing in the emerging market ecosystem and support early stage startups accelerating the growth of these companies and the industry at large.”
In the past, Nazara has looked at speed-scaling 13 startups providing them with growth capital. The company plans to apply a similar model for the next set of startups as well while aiming at targeted mentorship on business model refinement and go-to-market strategies. Nazara expects to see the same leadership growth with the new cohort that has been witnessed with the previous set of startups funded by the company.
Besides fund infusion and mentorship, the startup teams can tap into the vast geographical reach of Nazara’s business operations spanning across Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Indian sub-continent. They will have access to local payment options with readymade legal infrastructure to expand into the above geographies apart from reaching out to Nazara’s network of over 100 Million plus monthly active users in India. The startups will also get an opportunity to leverage network of experts across financial and legal strategy, brand and performance marketing; media ad sales; brand solutions in addition to running games as services.
