Playing to Win: Nitish Mittersain on Entrepreneurship, Saxophone and Future of Gaming Today, one is well aware of jargon such as start-ups, funding, venture capital, and equity. However, the late 1990s start-up landscape in India had negligible players. "I struggled to monetize at first, and real monetization was in 2007- 2008," said Mittersain

As children, many of us dream of becoming painters, footballers, dancers, or musicians. But as one grows older, those dreams often take a different path. Very few can make a living from their childhood passion, and Nitish Mittersain is one such exception.

Following his passion for over 30 years now, Mittersain's introduction to the world of gaming was through Atari gifted by his father at the age of five. At seven, he began basic coding games. "It was a natural progression by the time I got to college that I'd do something in gaming. I thought gaming in India would become big someday," said Mittersain at Entrepreneur Summit 2024. The by-product of his gaming interest took the shape of Nazara Technologies in 1998. At present, its network includes Nodwin Gaming, Nextwave Multimedia, SportsKeeda, Halaplay, Qunami, and Nazara Digital.

Key hurdles: Raising funds and IPO

"My mom always wanted me to do an MBA in the US, but now I often look back and say, I did a more expensive and enriching MBA sitting on the streets of Mumbai trying to figure out my life," Nitish Mittersain, Joint MD, Nazara Technologies shared candidly.

Today, one is well aware of jargon such as start-ups, funding, venture capital, and equity. However, the late 1990s start-up landscape in India had negligible players. "I struggled to monetize at first, and real monetization was in 2007- 2008," said Mittersain.

In the nascent stage, Mittersain's idea found backing in Sandeep Singhal and Westbridge Capital in 2005. In 2017, the "Big Bull" of the Indian stock market Rakesh Jhunjhunwala took an investor seat at the gaming start-up. So, what brought him on board? "I think what he liked about our company is we had raised very little capital from 2000 to 2017, we had raised only USD three million. But the company had grown quite a bit till then. He liked our old-school values in terms of cash flow and profits," he added. Jhunjhunwala came in during Nazara's first attempt at going public.

Having tried for a year to be IPO-ready, Nazara eventually had to postpone the plans due to the changing market dynamics. Contrary to the situation, the start-up reignited its IPO aspirations amid the 2020 pandemic. In March 2021 Nazara Technologies became the first Indian gaming company to go public and currently has a market capitalisation of over INR 8,000 crore. "It was a different time and a different thing. In the first attempt, we didn't get even one X subscription. In the second attempt, we got 175 times the subscription. So things changed… I think there was a concern about how investors will understand gaming," he added.

Since 2007-08, it has been working with 150 telecom entities in 50 countries. In recent times, it has aggressively been acquiring potential smaller bets such as STAN, Fusebox Games, Paper Boat Apps, and PokerBaazi's parent company- Moonshine Technology. Earlier this year, Nazara raised INR 250 crore from Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha, and other investors.

Words of wisdom: Entrepreneurial take

"Nazar became a billion-dollar company in 20 years, today, getting to a billion-dollar company in three years is very much possible," he shared optimistically.

Having procured funds five years into existence, can a start-up grow being bootstrapped? "The Indian market has evolved today… Entrepreneurs should be dreaming big; your business model has to be suitable for that. If you think a business model is something that will grow slowly over a period of time, then bootstrapping it is the best because you retain all equity and all control in the company," he shared.

Mittersain, citing an article, adds that 99.99 per cent of people are grossly underestimating what AI is going to do to our world and lives. He emphasized how one needs to leverage that to move faster, have a faster turnaround, and faster iterations.

On finding the right time to go public, he shares, "Indian public markets look for a minimum level of profitability scale and predictability of growth. Anybody thinking of going public three years before, start thinking of everything related to governance." The amount of value created by start-ups, particularly tech start-ups, in the next decade, will be unparalleled, "I think our NIFTY will convert into the NASDAQ of India."

On a lighter note, he spoke about setting aside time for one's leisure passion. Having played Saxophone for over 20 years in a Jazz band, he feels helps pursue balance while building a start-up.

Future of Gaming

Having been in the space for over 30 years, he highlights the ever-changing nature of the industry and calls it both "an opportunity and a threat." Artificial intelligence, virtual reality (VR), Metaverse, and Web3 are expected to play a larger role in the next five years. Notably, Nazara has been eyeing VR since 2010-11 and even played with the idea of establishing a VR lab.

Nazara in times to come

"I think there's no doubt in my mind that Nazara will do something in VR, and we will acquire a VR studio soon," Mittersain shed light on the VR acquisition and expansion plans.

At Nazara, they are also building an AI playbook for testing and reinventing gaming. Mittersain also shares that in the next six to nine months they expect to have an AI playbook for gaming which can be replicated for all studios Nazara is acquiring.

"I think everybody needs to be thinking three years out, uh, because otherwise there will be huge disruption and you don't want to be on the wrong side of disruption," he concludes.