Plutus Wealth buys out WestBridge from gaming platform Nazara

Homegrown private equity firm WestBridge Capital, one of the early investors in Nazara Technologies Ltd, has fully logged out of the mobile gaming platform through a secondary transaction.

Ahmedabad based financial adviser Plutus Wealth Management LLP has bought shares worth Rs 500 crore ($68 million) in Nazara Technologies from WestBridge.

WestBridge had been invested in the Mumbai-based company since 2005. The PE firm, estimated to have invested a cumulative amount of Rs 22.6 crore in Nazara, pocketed nearly Rs 1,000 crore from its investment, as per a press statement.

Nazara had in April 2018 received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India to float an initial public offering. 

WestBridge was expected to sell four-fifths of its holding in the IPO, with its stake reducing to 3.48% compared with its pre-IPO stake of 22.69%. However, Nazara has not yet gone public.

Plutus invests in equity and equity-related instruments of high-growth businesses in the listed and unlisted spaces. In September last year, the firm had acquired 0.68% stake in IT solutions provider Happiest Minds Technologies via an open market transaction.

Nazara was set up in 1999 by Nitish Mittersain. It has acquired several mobile gaming projects from emerging markets around the world, including in India, West Asia and Latin America.

In June last year, Nazara became a majority investor in fantasy sports startup HalaPlay Technologies Pvt. Ltd following the acquisition of early-stage fund Kae Capital’s stake in the company.

In May last year, Nazara invested in vernacular social contests platform Bakbuck.

Gaming as a segment has seen a huge jump in attention and funding in the past couple of years.

In December last year, social gaming studio Bombay Play Pvt Ltd raised $1 million (around Rs 7.37 crore) in a seed round led by Lumikai, the interactive-media focussed firm that floated its maiden early-stage investment vehicle in August.

In August, multi-game platform Gamezop raised $4.3 million in a Series A funding round that was led by US-based Bitkraft Ventures. Velo Partners, FJ Labs and Survam Partners also participated.

In July, mobile game development studio Firescore Interactive Pvt. Ltd raised around Rs 3.7 crore in a funding round led by multinational studio and publisher CrazyLabs.