Nazara Technologies has announced a partnership with Griffin Gaming Partners, one of the largest gaming-focused venture capital fund, as the company looks to expand its network of portfolio companies in India and the global gaming industry.
As part of this partnership, Nazara has committed to invest Rs 30 crore ($4 million) into Griffin Gaming Partners' second fund. This includes an upfront investment of Rs 10 crore ($1.34 million) and the remaining Rs 20 crore ($2.66 million) to be deployed over a period of three years.
On March 7, Griffin Gaming Partners had announced that it had raised $750 million in its second fund, bringing the total assets under management to over $1 billion across its two funds. The firm backs startups in areas of content, software infrastructure, social platforms, and gaming-related Web3 companies.
Griffin Gaming Partners made its debut investment in India in July last year by leading a $65-million investment into social gaming platform Winzo. Among its global portfolio firms include Discord, AppLovin, Forte, Overwolf and Spyke Games.
“Griffin Gaming Partners led by Peter, Phil and Nick has established itself the go to gaming fund for entrepreneurs across the world looking to raise smart money. The value addition which the Griffin team brings to the founding team is priceless and hence this partnership with Griffin will act as catalyst to accelerate growth of Nazara’s footprint in the local Indian and global gaming ecosystem” said Nazara Technologies CEO Manish Agarwal.
The company said this proposed investment will enable them to become a part of a global network of Griffin's limited partners (LPs) as well as its investee companies.
The diversified gaming and sports media firm aims to leverage the network for potential partnerships/investment into Nazara Technologies and its subsidiaries, co-investment opportunities into "highly sought-after founders/ companies" and secure deal flow for future mergers and acquisitions from the current portfolio of the funds as well as inflow of deals coming to funds.
“Gaming is projected to reach a staggering $256 billion of annual consumer spend in 2025. Having key strategic partnerships such as Nazara in the rapidly scaling geography of the Indian subcontinent is a significant benefit for Griffin. What Manish and the team at Nazara have built is highly differentiated and their culture is a spot-on fit with our strategy,” said Peter Levin, Managing Director, Griffin Gaming Partners.
Nazara Technologies's portfolio of startups, which the company terms as 'Friends of Nazara' network include Nodwin Gaming and SportsKeeda in esports segment, and Paper Boat Apps, developers of the popular gamified learning app Kiddopia.
Next Wave Multimedia, the developer of World Cricket Championship (WCC), the largest mobile-based cricket simulation game, as well as Halaplay, Qunami and OpenPlay in the skill based real money gaming vertical and Datawrkz, a programmatic advertising and monetisation company are also part of the network.
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