Shares of Nazara Technologies, a part of Rekha Jhunjhunwala's portfolio, rallied nearly 9% in intraday trade on Friday after Nodwin Gaming, a subsidiary of the company, inked a deal to raise $28 million (about ₹232 crore) from five investors. Nodwin will raise funds from parent Nazara, South Korean digital games developer Krafton, Japanese conglomerate Sony Group, InnoPark India, and JetSynthesys. Rekha Rakesh Jhunjhunwala holds a 9.96% stake in the company, which is valued at around ₹400 crore.
Continuing its gaining streak for the third straight session, Nazara Technologies shares opened 2.2% higher at ₹593.95 against the previous closing price of ₹580.85 on the BSE. During the session, the stock gained as much as 8.9% to hit an intraday high of ₹632.60. The stock has risen as much as 11.6% in the past three sessions.
With a market capitalisation of ₹4,010 crore, the smallcap stock has delivered a flat return of 1% in the last year, while it has fallen 1.5% in the calendar year 2023. In the past six months, the gaming stock has gained 1.5%, whereas it added 14% in a month.
The stock currently trades 20% lower than its 52-week high of ₹789 touched on September 12, 2022, whereas it is up 31% against its 52-week low of ₹481.95 hit on March 20, 2023.
“Majority of these funds will be channelized towards growing the Gaming and esports ecosystem of NODWIN by expanding and incubating newer IPs, growing the emerging market footprint of NODWIN and for strategic acquisitions that drive value to the network,” Nazara Technologies said in a BSE filing on Thursday.
As per the statutory filing, all existing investors of NODWIN Gaming (Nazara, KRAFTON, Inc. and JetSynthesys) will join new incoming investors in this funding round. NODWIN last raised funds in March 2021 from South Korean gaming company KRAFTON, Inc. at $135 million (₹988 Cr) value and this round values NODWIN at $325 million (₹2,624 Cr) pre-money and $349M post money which leads to a value accretion of 2.7X in 2 years, it said.
“We have managed this growth while being able to maintain profitability in our business and gain a global dominant position in mobile esports while delivering shareholder value. The team in NODWIN led by cofounder Gautam Virk has been instrumental in manifesting this vision to reality…We believe that the confluence of gaming, esports and youth culture are colliding extremely fast and we would like to continue to build our value proposition as a Sports media Company (with a focus on esports) to this TG by focussing on the timeshare of their mindshare as the key growth metric” said Akshat Rathee, Co-Founder and Managing Director, NODWIN Gaming.
NODWIN Gaming is one of the world’s leading emerging market gaming and esports companies which works on sports entertainment (with a focus on esports as their sport of choice) as the core value offering to fans, publishers, and brands across its various IPs in esports, Gaming, Music, Comedy and Live experiences. NODWIN operates across multiple offices in South Asia, Singapore, Middle East and Turkey.
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