Zerodha Cofounder Nikhil Kamath May Acquire More Stake In Nazara Technologies

New Delhi: Nikhil Kamath, Co-founder and CEO of leading stock broker Zerodha, is reportedly acquiring more stake in homegrown gaming platform Nazara Technologies.

According to CNBC-TV18, citing sources, Kamath is aiming to acquire a total of 3.5 per cent stake in the firm “in his personal capacity”.

Kamath already holds about 1 per cent stake in the mobile gaming platform.

The deal is expected to close soon, Nazara Tech, however, refused to comment on the “speculation”, said the report.

The deal will come as the Indian gaming industry is witnessing a stupendous growth.

The Indian gaming market is expected to grow from $2.8 billion in 2022 to $5 billion in 2025, growing at a CAGR of 28-30 per cent.

Nazara is likely to hold a shareholders meeting on September 4 to possibly discuss raising money through issuing equity shares on a preferential basis.

Last month, Nazara invested nearly Rs 4.15 crore through its subsidiary, Nazara PTE Ltd, in Snax Games Ltd, an Israeli game developer.

The gaming and sports media platform's profit after tax (PAT) surged 31 per cent to Rs 20.9 crore (year-on-year) in the first quarter of the current financial year.

The revenue grew 14 per cent (YoY) to Rs 254.4 crore and EBITDA by 10 per cent to Rs 33.1 crore for the quarter ended June 30.

Nazara has offerings across the interactive gaming, eSports, ad-tech and gamified early learning ecosystems.

It includes World Cricket Championship (WCC) in mobile games, Kiddopia and Wildworks in gamified early learning, Nodwin, PublishMe and Sportskeeda in eSports and eSports media, OpenPlay, Halaplay and Qunami in skill-based, fantasy and trivia games, and Datawrkz in digital ad-tech.