Mumbai-based Nazara Games enters Great Britain, co-invests in mobile game studio TrulySocial
Have you ever ponder over how Nazara Games landed into a deal with London-based mobile games studio TrulySocial? It all started with a casual meeting in conference between Manish Agarwal, CEO of Nazara Games and Salone Sehgal ,Co-founder of TrulySocial which led to an investment deal eventually.
Mobile game developing and publishing company Nazara Games has co-invested an undisclosed amount in TrulySocial for a minority stake. The investment has also seen the participation of London Venture Partners and Drussila Hollanda-Grönberg, Game Lead at Supercell.
Salone Sehgal, CEO and Co-founder, TrulySocial, said that the investment and marketing partnership with Nazara secures distribution for TrulySocial's localized game. With celebrity tie ups through Nazara, the company is aiming to bring innovative gaming content to Indian audiences.
Manish mentioned that TrulySocial has a team of 12 people and plans to increase the number of employees. Co-founded by Salone Sehgal and Sebastian Coman, TrulySocial will build contemporary social world games for mobiles and tablets across the globe by the end of this year.
Manish said,
We see a perfect fit with TrulySocial’s contemporary social world and are working with them to bring a completely new genre of gaming to India.
Nazara Games’ previous investment
In November 2014, Nazara Games co-invested an undisclosed amount in a Bengaluru-based mobile gaming startup HashCube along with Ah! Ventures, CDMA Development Group founder Perry LaForge, and existing investors Indian Angel Network and Blume Ventures.
In addition to developing a range of branded and original mobile games, Nazara operates “Games Club”, which they call it their unique service. Its customers include mobile carriers as well as handset manufacturers. Nazara is present in 41 countries across the world and claims to reach out to more than 2 billion consumers.
Yourstory’s take
Gaming industry in India is still considered to be at a nascent stage. But with the affordability of smartphones and data connectivity, the industry is gaining momentum. Though the Indian market is still under-developed, the size of mobile gaming market globally is $30 billion and is expected to cross $40 billion mark in the next two years.
Manish claims that India has approximately 200-250 gaming startups and 100 million mobile gamers which is likely to increase to 300-400 million in the next two to three years.
The year 2015 has seen a number of investor activities in gaming space. Mobile gaming firm Mech Mocha has raised an undisclosed amount form Flipkart and Blume Ventures. Hyderabad-based gaming startup has raised Rs. 1.65 crores seed fund from The Chennai Angles. PlaySimple has raised seed fund from IDG Ventures and other angel investors. Moonfrog Labs raised $15 million from US-based venture capital (VC) firms Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global.
Nazara Games’s investment in TrulySocial is first of its kind where a London-based gaming startup is backed by an Indian company. This investment could potentially help attract the attention of London Venture Partner (a seed fund focused on the gaming sector) to the Indian gaming startups.
David Gardner, General Partner at London VP,
We have been looking carefully for teams with new ideas and a different approach to stand out from the crowded apps marketplace. TrulySocial are doing just that and we believe they will succeed.