Krafton, South Korea’s gaming large recognized for titles together with PUBG: Battlegrounds and Battlegrounds Cellular India (BGMI), has acquired a controlling stake in 12-year-old Indian gaming studio Nautilus Cellular for $14 million in an all-cash deal.
On Friday, the South Korean gaming firm confirmed to TechCrunch that it has acquired a “north of 75% stake” in Nautilus, the gaming studio fashionable for its cricket enthusiast-focused Actual Cricket franchise.
The Pune-based studio will proceed to function independently after the deal, which is anticipated to shut by the top of the month, with all its 45 staff remaining on Nautilus’s payroll, Krafton advised TechCrunch.
Based in 2013, Nautilus has garnered tens of millions of downloads for its Actual Cricket franchise, which at present has 5 titles, together with Actual Cricket 24 and Actual Cricket Premier League.
Krafton goals to strengthen Nautilus’s “core competence” in cell cricket video games — the place demand is excessive in cricket-loving India — by refining its current titles within the quick time period and exploring new genres in the long run, Sean Hyunil Sohn, CEO at Krafton India, mentioned in an interview.
“Our growth functionality in Nautilus will assist Krafton double down on its India gaming technique, and collectively, we are able to most likely construct extra video games, extra genres, each for the Indian market and international market going ahead,” Nautilus CEO Anuj Mankar advised TechCrunch.
The corporate plans to increase Nautilus’ presence to different geographies over time.
India’s cell gaming market is rising steadily, pushed by a big base of younger smartphone customers. Cellular video games dominate the nation’s total gaming trade by spending, accounting for 77.9% of whole income, per market intelligence agency Niko Companions. The agency additionally estimates that the nation’s cell gaming income will develop from $640 million in 2023 to $1.1 billion by 2028.
Krafton, which noticed 119.3% year-over-year progress in its internet revenue final 12 months to roughly $889 million (KRW 1.3 trillion), sees India as a promising and key market to proceed its success. Nonetheless, many of the progress from India has to this point come from its flagship title for the native viewers, Battlegrounds Cellular India (BGMI), which hit its highest-ever gross sales final 12 months and surpassed 200 million downloads.
The corporate has different titles, together with Bullet Echo India, Street To Valor, and CookieRun. Nonetheless, they haven’t but helped repeat the success story of the battle royale sport, a localized model of PUBG.
The deal might assist Krafton transfer past BGMI and discover new avenues of success, together with cricket and different sports activities video games, to draw new avid gamers.
In 2020, Indian digital leisure and know-how firm JetSynthesys acquired a 100% stake in Nautilus Cellular. That was adopted by Krafton’s strategic funding of $5.4 million in 2022.
Sohn advised TechCrunch that whereas Nautilus’ potential was the rationale for the preliminary funding, Krafton discovered its position as a minority stakeholder limiting when it comes to supporting the studio’s content material growth. Gaining a controlling stake, he mentioned, would enable for deeper collaboration and better involvement in core growth efforts with Nautilus.
“We strongly imagine that cricket video games have plenty of potential. And we need to work with Nautilus to make one of the best effort attainable to actually understand the potential of this market, not simply in India, however in different cricket-playing nations and different international locations, which have gotten extra lively in cricket,” mentioned Nihansh Bhat, company lead growth at Krafton India, advised TechCrunch.
JetSynthesys will stay a “vital minority” investor in Nautilus Cellular and can proceed to work with the studio on areas, together with eSports. The corporate has already labored with the studio to assist companion its Actual Cricket sport with cricket groups, together with these related to the Indian Premier League, the world’s most profitable cricket match in India.
“We’ll, over a protracted time frame, need to have a look at, in fact, elevated income, elevated person base, improved retention, all the standard issues, and hopefully new offers as properly,” Bhat mentioned on the query of how Krafton would measure the deal’s success submit its completion.
Till now, Krafton has invested over $200 million in India, excluding the Nautilus Cellular.
Krafton’s 20% investments in India have been in gaming and gaming-adjacent corporations, although the corporate additionally invested in Indian startups, together with the funds platform Cashfree, audio platform Kuku FM, and influencer advertising platform One Impression. It additionally backed funds, together with gaming-focused Lumikai and IMM Funding’s first India fund.
“We’re wanting on the alternative for acquisitions, average investments, and even enterprise collaboration with notable gamers within the nation,” Sohn mentioned.
Nautilus will be a part of the 14 different sport studios Krafton operates in markets all over the world.