Nazara Tech soars on gaming boom; Guiding India’s real estate decisions

Tis' the season of earnings.

Coworking workplace solutions startup Awfis’ comprehensive profit for Q4 widened to Rs 11 crore, aided by a significant increase in other income, even as expenses nearly kept pace with revenue growth.

But not every company had a dream earnings quarter.

FirstCry parent Brainbees Solutions saw its losses widen by 50% even as it clocked double-digit growth in its topline in Q4. Its bottomline was weighed down by higher expenses associated with employee benefit expenses and raw materials. It now eyes profitability for the house of brands GlobalBees amid stable growth.

Meanwhile, the startup ecosystem is alive with controversy.

Zepto co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha has accused a rival CFO in the quick commerce space of orchestrating a smear campaign targeting the company's growth trajectory and its purported high cash burn strategy.

Sridhar Vembu also had some defending to do. The Zoho top boss reasoned that "instant success is neither necessary nor sufficient to succeed long term”, as Sarvam AI faced criticism over its newly released LLM, Sarvam-M. Many international developers and investors have questioned the model’s originality and competitiveness as it's based on an open-source language model.

Speaking of AI, can it ever attain consciousness? Researchers from Sussex University want to figure out consciousness with ‘Dreamachine’.

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• Nazara Tech soars on gaming boom
• Guiding India’s real estate decisions
• Shoffr’s plan to crack the ride-hailing market

Here’s your trivia for today: Which river was once known as “Sorrow of Bengal” for its frequent flooding?

Gaming

Nazara Tech soars on gaming boom

Gaming giant Nazara Technologies on Monday reported a 95% rise in revenue to Rs 520.2 crore during the quarter ended March 31st, helped by revenue gains across its gaming, esports, and ad tech verticals. 

The Mumbai-based company also saw its net profit from continuing operations attributable to equity shareholders rise to Rs 15.86 crore during this period compared to Rs 8.35 crore in the year-ago quarter. 

Nazara 3.0:

• The esports vertical, the company’s largest segment in terms of earnings, reported a revenue of Rs 217.1 crore during the period compared to Rs 148.2 crore in FY24. However, the vertical also slightly weighed in on the company’s bottom line by reporting a loss of Rs 11.47 crore. 
• Nazara’s gaming segment reported a revenue of Rs 156.41 crore compared to Rs 91.03 crore in the year-ago period, while ad tech reported a revenue of Rs 147.9 crore compared to Rs 27.49 crore in FY24. 
• Despite the jump in revenue, the company saw its expenses almost double to Rs 527.7 crore during the period compared to Rs 285 crore. 

Funding Alert

Startup: Mufin Green Finance

Amount: $18M

Round: Debt

Startup: Stockal

Amount: Rs 20 Cr

Round: Bridge funding

Startup

Guiding India’s real estate decisions

India’s real estate market is seeing a boom and the property management segment, in particular, is seeing an uptick. It is expected to reach $42.78 billion by 2030. 

Bengaluru-based Address Advisors wants to make the most of this growth. With a footprint across major cities and a portfolio spanning corporate, residential, retail, industrial, and warehousing segments, the firm focuses on blending personalised advisory with market intelligence.

Building blocks:

• The company operates on a B2B model for commercial real estate, and both B2B and B2C for the residential segment. They also work with corporate movements for expats or senior hires moving to different cities, and help them with their residential requirements. 
• Founded by Sunny Mogra and Bhawana Khetan, the company already has a presence in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune. It is eyeing to add Mumbai and Delhi-NCR to its portfolio this year.
• Address Advisors has catered to over 1,000 clients including Zepto, Tyson Foods, Reliance, Amazon, Acko, Big Basket, Spinny, Tata Motors, Poonawalla Fincorp, and Mensa Brands.

Interview

Shoffr’s plan to crack the ride-hailing market

As a second mover, Bengaluru-based electric taxi service Shoffr has the advantage of learning from the mistakes of its peers who started out earlier. Having learnt from observation and experience, it intends to do things differently.  

A big takeaway for Shoffr—which provides airport transfers, outstation rentals, and city rentals—is the need to focus on higher utilisation of assets, unit economics, and operational efficiency to ensure the business stays sustainable.

Competitive landscape:

• Shoffr started as a bootstrapped venture, launching with a fleet of four cars. Once the fleet reached a breakeven point of 20-30 cars, the business became self-sustaining, CEO and Co-founder Vikas Bardia says. Today, the company has scaled to around 130-150 cars in Bengaluru and 20-25 in Delhi.
• The company’s unique way of fundraising—from its own users and angel investors instead of traditional VC funding, was a way to give early adopters a “chance to participate in the company’s growth”, according to Bardia. While Shoffr is open to VC funding, it’s crucial to find investors who share their vision, he adds. 
• Building on the experience of its competitors, Shoffr’s focus is on high utilisation and avoiding expanding too quickly. The company’s asset utilisation is over 75%, which helps keep the business sustainable, Bardia says.

News & updates

• Back and forth: US President Donald Trump has agreed to extend a deadline to negotiate tariffs with the European Union by more than a month. On Friday, Trump expressed frustration with the pace of talks and threatened to raise the tariff rate to an even higher level of 50% as soon as 1 June.
• Difficult decision: Sweden-based automaker Volvo Cars said it would cut around 3,000 jobs as part of a major cost-cutting drive. The move comes after the company, which is owned by China’s Geely Holding, announced a $1.89 billion cost and cash action plan late last month.
• Train to Busan: OpenAI has established a legal entity in South Korea, seeking to propel further adoption of its artificial intelligence technologies. The ChatGPT-maker plans to open an office in Seoul in the coming months and is hiring staff to support partnerships with companies and policymakers.

Which river was once known as “Sorrow of Bengal” for its frequent flooding?

Answer: Damodar River.

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