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In a landmark moment for India’s esports ecosystem, NODWIN Gaming has raised Rs. 164 crore of equity investment from South Korean gaming firm KRAFTON, of PUBG fame. The influx of funds will be used for the development of esports in three regions – South Asia, Middle East and Africa.
Nazara Technologies will continue to own a majority stake of 50% in NODWIN Gaming, which has created a value increment of 6.44X in just three years.
KRAFTON’s investment in NODWIN Gaming further cements the strong relationship between the two companies. In the past, NODWIN has executed multiple tournament IPs such as the PUBG Mobile Club Open (PMCO), PUBG Mobile India Series (PMIS) and PUBG Mobile Pro League (PMPL) in the subcontinent.
NODWIN Gaming co-founder and Managing Director Akshat Rathee recently spoke with Sportskeeda about the new development. Rathee mentioned how the connection between the two companies has grown steadily over the years, despite the fact that KRAFTON has never been a direct client of NODWIN.
"Interestingly, KRAFTON was never a client of ours,” Rathee said. “Our relationship was predominantly with Tencent as such; we built the PUBG Mobile ecosystem with them in India. Now, NODWIN has started running the PUBG Mobile ecosystem outside of India too - for example, in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and also Dubai.
“You’re currently seeing all the streams that are happening from PUBG Mobile South Asia,” he added. “That is something we’ve been doing with Tencent very actively. While Tencent is the organization we were doing Esports with, the IP of PUBG Mobile is still KRAFTON. KRAFTON found our work pretty interesting and we had several conversations around that."
After the PUBG Mobile ban in India, NODWIN Gaming has expanded its reach to different parts of South Asia. In fact, Nepal recently got its very own edition of PMCO for the first time.
Fuelled by the world's largest youth demographic and reducing data prices, NODWIN Gaming's innovative approach towards mobile-first esports markets was what helped them secure the historic investment from KRAFTON.
“Here is a hypothesis that we have,” Rathee said. “Any market that has a lot of 16-24-year-old youth has the nature of becoming a data native. Data prices need to be cheap, mobile phones need to be cheap, and there should be access to global content. Markets should also have a robust payment system. We found these types of markets to be very interesting. Every market behaves differently, some people will like different languages, games, genres and it is likely to change from place to place."
“If and when PUBG Mobile comes back to India along with PUBG: New State, we will go ahead and support them” - NODWIN Gaming Managing Director Akshat Rathee
A deal between NODWIN Gaming and KRAFTON could also help the latter set up infrastructure for their other games - especially if there is an 'esports market' for them.
"We’ll have another portfolio for South Asia and KRAFTON’s other titles if they are deemed fit for esports in the future,” Rathee went on. “We’ll go ahead and figure out some synergies with their existing products. If and when PUBG Mobile comes back to India along with PUBG: New State, we will go ahead and support them."
Rathee also elaborated on the technological developments being undertaken by NODWIN. The graphics and data that players see in tournaments have a deeper purpose like player behavior, AR/ VR, and statistical comparisons for performance improvement.
"Technology spans multiple things for us - from studios where we might go ahead and invest in, to some technologies that we have been testing with Augmented Reality, VR,” Rathee said. “It also might be anti-cheats that we are looking at and other systems, to go ahead and prevent any kind of hacking in the region. Also, the kind of data integration we can look at. So all the graphics that you see in PUBG Mobile tournaments, there is someone who is building that data stack and we believe broadcast integration and broadcast level data can go ahead from the game and manifest it to find out things like why someone is better than you."
Over the past four months, KRAFTON has been making continuous attempts to re-launch PUBG Mobile in India. But even after announcing an Indian version of PUBG Mobile, they are yet to receive permission from the government.
KRAFTON's response to NODWIN Gaming investment
That said, KRAFTON remains committed to its promise of investing $100 million in the Indian esports market. Elucidating about the NODWIN Gaming investment, KRAFTON CEO Chang Han Kim said:
"KRAFTON is excited to partner with NODWIN Gaming to help foster the promising esports ecosystem and engage with our fans and players in India. Taking the momentum from this partnership, we will explore additional investment opportunities in the region to uphold our commitment and dedication in cultivating the local video game, esports, entertainment and tech industries.”
The latest funding for NODWIN Gaming comes after previous investments from Rakesh Jhunjhunwala (backed by Nazara Technologies Limited) and JetSynthesys Private limited (backed by Infosys Limited co-founder Krish Gopalakrishnan). For Nazara Technologies, this historic development comes just weeks after they filed their preliminary IPO papers with SEBI and also raised Rs. 100 crore in funding from Instant Growth Ltd.
Nazara Technologies CEO Manish Agarwal said in this regard:
“We at Nazara congratulate the NODWIN Gaming team on the KRAFTON investment, and it is a strong testimony of their leadership position in esports in India. Nazara has been an early and strong believer in the potential of esports to disrupt the sports entertainment market, and we believe this partnership between KRAFTON and the Nazara group will accelerate the growth of esports and open doors for collaboration between Indian and Korean gaming companies in future.”
Players all across India are keenly waiting for PUBG Mobile to return to the country. But there's something to cheer about in the meantime; KRAFTON’s investment in NODWIN Gaming is a sure-shot sign that they are committed to partnering with industry leaders and accelerating the growth of esports in the region.
