Nazara acquires majority stake in game developer Sports Unity

Nazara Technologies, the Mumbai-based mobile gaming startup, has acquired a majority stake in Delhi-based video game developer, Sports Unity.

The move is expected to help Nazara, which has now invested $1 million in Sports Unity, to expand its presence in quizzing and trivia games genres, said a statement from Nazara Technologies.

Delhi-based lawyer Vaibhav Gaggar, a managing partner at legal consultancy firm Gaggar & Associates, Solicitors and Attorneys, also participated in the latest funding round.

Sports Unity is the developer of Qunami, a multiplayer quiz game with over 40,000 monthly active users (MAUs). The game has been downloaded over 300,000 times across Google Play and App Store.

Nazara currently offers fantasy sports, digital cricket gaming and infotainment content.

The spotlight of the deal is on the quiz app Qunami.  The app has transitioned from being a niche cricket-based news and scores app to a cash-based trivia app, covering myriad categories of trivia.

“We at Nazara are very excited with the quizzing space and are confident that Qunami will leverage Nazara’s network to grow into a large consumer centric internet brand and build quizzing as one of the leading real money gaming categories in the emerging markets,” said Manish Agarwal, chief executive officer, Nazara Technologies.  

Sports Unity was founded in 2015 by joint managing director at Filatex India, Purrshottam Bhaggeria. Seemant Shankar, former executive at software solutions company Quadrical.ai, and Rishiraj Shrawat, former executive at ecommerce platform Snapdeal, joined the startup in 2016.

Nazara was founded in the year 2000 by Nitish Mittersain, former director at MEF Mobile, a trade association of the mobile media industry. The startup claims to have served as a platform for transactions worth over $30 million since 2017.

Over the years, Nazara has acquired majority stakes in gaming developers Nextwave Multimedia, Nodwin Gaming and fantasy sports platform, HalaPlay Technologies.  

The company has invested in startups like Noida-based gaming studio Moong Labs Technologies, digital quizzing platform CrimzonCode, virtual reality (VR)-driven gaming firm Instasportz and esports platform NZ World.

In August 2019, Nazara acquired a majority stake in sports content platform Sportskeeda. A month earlier, it had invested $5.21 million in the Bengaluru based startup.

In May, vernacular social contests platform Bakbuck had raised an undisclosed amount from Nazara Technologies. The startup uses immersive visual content to make traditional Indian games such as ‘Antakshari’ into interactive online contests.

In 2016, Nazara Technologies made one of its first substantial investments as it picked up a 26% stake in London-based mobile gaming studio Mastermind Sports.