Can India's Nazara really crack $10 billion?

After a couple of decades flying under the radar on the international stage, India-based gaming and sports media firm Nazara has more recently been busy splashing the cash.

When we caught up with the company last year, CEO and joint MD Nitish Mittersain discussed its $100 million M&A warchest and ambitions of growing to a $10 billion valuation.

India’s first public games company, it had acquired Kiddopia developer Paper Boat Apps, US games content platform Deltias Gaming and marketing agency Freaks 4U. Other past deals include the purchase of US developer WildWorks.

Since then, Nazara has spent over and above $100m on M&A. It has bought UK-based Love Island game developer Fusebox for $27.2m, UK publisher Curve Games for $28.9m, and picked up a 47.7% stake in PokerBaazi parent Moonshine for $117 million, amongst other activity.

The company has also been busy raising hundreds of millions of dollars to fuel this M&A spree. Nazara now has a market cap of approximately $1.5bn, trading at near all-time highs.

“The last five years have been accelerating at a very fast pace for us,” Mittersain tells PocketGamer.biz.

He highlights drivers such as India’s fast-rising mobile games market, at least in terms of adoption and engagement, and general access to internet capable devices in the country. Mittersain adds that taking the company public with an oversubscribed IPO has also helped raise investor attention.

“I think that kind of brought the games industry in India into focus for Indian investors as well as global investors,” he states, adding: “Over the last six, seven years, Nazara has transitioned into this global platform which allows us to demonstrate our ability to scale.

"We have been growing fast, if you see our latest quarterly results, we posted a year-on-year 90% growth in revenue while continuing to be very profitable.”

M&A strategy

Mittersain says that Nazara operates in a decentralised manner, letting the teams that it acquires and invests in remain “fairly autonomous” in their operations.

It provides support through its ‘Friends of Nazara’ platform, through which its studios can tap into expertise across the group in areas such as UA, data analytics, AI and more.

“I've always had a belief that one of the biggest failures in M&A is caused by overestimating synergies at the time of acquisition, overpaying for the synergies, which may never materialise," says Mittersain.

"And also, because you've kind of visualised so many synergies, right from day one of the acquisition you start pushing the management of the acquired company just to focus on synergies and deliver on them, which kind of defocuses them from the core business in itself. 

“So our approach has been quite the opposite, where while we may look at synergies at a holistic high level, we actually buy a company for its core capabilities and for its own core business.

“And we let the synergies kind of evolve over a period of time with much softer hands, I would say. And that has worked better for us.”

Its investments span a broad array of genres, platforms and markets, from mobile to now PC and console, from licenced games to new IP. Mittersain says a key factor in its M&A strategy is finding a company that’s profitable or has a clear path to profitability, and whether there’s an opportunity to scale globally or create new revenue streams.

One example he uses is that of Fusebox Games, which has now received expanded support in India and has tapped the Big Brother and Bigg Boss licences for new titles.

Asked why Nazara is pursuing such a broad M&A strategy, rather than focusing on a specific niche, Mittersain says it’s able to gain a large share of markets in India, while expanding with a core gaming strategy globally.

“While it does look diversified it does come with some advantages as well,” he explains.

“The wider canvas gives us a lot more optionality in terms of having many more companies fit our filters. I would say our own filters are pretty strict and therefore the larger of the companies we can put on top of the funnel and we are able to get better options.

“If we narrow down our focus too much then I think it would be a little tougher for us. So I think from that perspective, the wider canvas is helping us. Of course the flip side of being a leader in a niche of course has its own merits, but we chose to go down this path.

“Lastly, you know, with our experience of 20, 25 years, I’ve realised that slotting yourself in a very narrow space can have its own challenges because our businesses continue to be very disruptive.

“Things are changing all the time and having a slightly wider portfolio allows us to be nimble enough to go with trends and evolve ourselves, just the way we've done for the last 25 years.”

Growth potential

India’s games market has for, for many years, been talked up for its potential, which it's never quite met.

The market continues to generate more downloads than any other country, but conversions to paying players remain very low. Titles like PUBG Mobile and Free Fire have shown a glimpse of a lucrative opportunity, but it has yet to significantly move the needle.

Mittersain says that a historical preference to casual gaming and the abundance of free options available has driven a propensity for lower levels of spend in the country. But with digital payment adoption expanding and a growing young population that’s more into gaming, he believes the Indian market will surprise in the next five years.

“I think it’s because of this pessimism that you spoke about, that it’s happening, it’s happening, that India's been a potentially large market for a really long time, but it's never really delivered. I'm surprised that in 2025 there are very few global players who are really active in the Indian market and I think a lot of them are missing something very important.”

Mittersain is hopeful that India’s own games companies, like Nazara, will start expanding on the global stage. Studios like Paper Boat Apps and PlaySimple have broken out, he says, while the country’s Prime Minister is himself pushing for the local industry to build games for the world.

Nazara itself has helped promote Indian games companies at events like GDC, investing in the India Games Pavillion at key shows around the world to showcase locally made games.

Nazara has a long way to go to reach its ambition of a $10 billion valuation, a figure perhaps shared to keep shareholders excited.

Whether it hits the mark, Nazara looks set to continue its M&A activity while also driving attention towards India’s high potential games market.

Learn more about Asia's games industry at the Pocket Gamer Connects Summit Shanghai on July 30th.