Nazara Technologies picks up 10.77% stake in Kofluence for Rs 32.42 cr

Gaming and sports media platform Nazara Technologies said its board has approved a preferential share issue worth Rs 250 crore and also picking up minority interest in social media influencer platform Kofluence Tech through a share swap deal that values the transaction at Rs 32.41 crore.

A company statement said it will pick up 10.77% in Kofluence from some existing investors through a share swap and post-deal they will jointly launch a social game discovery platform.

Through the share swap, Nazara will issue 3.72 shares at a price of Rs 872.15 per equity share aggregating to Rs 32.41 crore, by way of preferential issue on a private placement basis.

The proceeds from the rights issue will be used to meet funding requirements and growth objectives including for making strategic acquisitions and general corporate purposes, it said.

The fund-raise is part of the Rs 750 crore funding it announced earlier in the year, Nitish Mittersain, the founder & chief executive of Nazara, said.

The preferential issue will be primarily to its external investors who include Nikhil Kamath of the Zerodha fame through his firms NK Squared and Kamath Associates; ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, and Plutus Wealth.

Post issue, Kamath will own 5% of the company, making this his single largest investment in a listed company.

Nazara, the only listed gaming company in the country, sits on cash reserves of over Rs 1,500 crore, he added.

On the acquisition, Mittersain said Kofluence is a leading social media influencer-led marketing-tech platform with over 6 lakh registered creators across Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Linkedin, and X across 20 languages.

In February 2022, Kofluence announced a pre-Series A funding round of $4 million, spearheaded by Nikhil Kamath.

As a full-stack marketing platform, Kofluence caters to performance metrics across creating awareness, interest, desire, and action and it has over 500 clients across 20 sectors, Sreeram Reddy Vanga, co-founder and chief executive of Kofluence said.

Vanga has been a serial entrepreneur for the past 20 years and has built and sold CozyGames to Entain PLC in the UK and OpenPlay to Nazara in India.