InMobi's Glance buys Gambit Sports in NFT gaming push

Representative Image: Shutterstock

InMobi-owned lockscreen platform Glance on March 25 announced the acquisition of Bengaluru-based Gambit Sports to strengthen its gaming offerings.

This acquisition comes a month after Glance raised $200 million from Jio Platforms to accelerate its global expansion. The company also entered into a business partnership with Jio Platforms through which Glance’s lockscreen platform will be integrated into JioPhone Next smartphones.

Glance said this acquisition will enable the company to bring NFT (non fungible tokens)-based live gaming experiences to GenZ users on its platform.

The company claims that its lockscreen gaming platform has over 45 million monthly active users across Asia, of which 70 percent are in the age group of 18 to 34 and over 40 percent are female users. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Glance will use Gambit’s expertise to launch live gaming experiences including tournaments, game shows, game streaming and multi-player games on lockscreen.

It will also enable the company to launch multiple casual-to-midcore games. NFT gaming experience, which is expected to debut in the coming quarters, will enable creators, streamers and developers to monetise through assets and NFT-based game creation, the company said.

“Giving users live, connected, interactive gaming experiences on the lock screen is key to Glance’s vision of building the world’s largest live internet platform. We also aim to launch creator-led NFTs for live gaming which will generate unique ‘play-to-earn’ and ‘play-to-own’ possibilities for the entire gaming ecosystem,” said Piyush Shah, co-founder of InMobi Group, and president and COO of Glance.

Gambit Sports was started in 2015 by Yashashvi Takallapalli, Gaurav Konar, Ranaveer Sankieneni and Deepak Venkatramani. It has developed a multi-player gaming app Nostragamus (Nostra Pro) that offers real-money games such as fantasy sports, poker, and rummy as well as live quiz and hyper-casual games. The company claims that it has close to 10 million registered users with over 100 million games played on the platform.

“We have already started seeing great traction for live gaming on Glance. For instance, over 10 million users watch live game streams on Glance every week now. With Glance and Gambit’s combined strengths and our belief that there is a game for every person, we envision doubling the number of monthly active gamers on Glance Games in the next year,” said Takallapalli.

Founded in 2019, Glance claims that its lockscreen platform is present on more than 400 million devices across markets in Asia. Apart from Jio Platforms, it counts technology giant Google and Silicon Valley-based venture fund Mithril Capital among its investors.

Disclaimer: MoneyControl is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.