iWorld
Warner Music India expands partnership with Sky Digital India
Mumbai: Warner Music India has signed a joint venture deal with Sky Digital, India’s fastest-growing Punjabi music content consortium and aggregator, significantly expanding their partnership.
The companies penned a strategic partnership in 2021, but have now entered into a new phase of collaboration that will see them jointly develop and manage a roster, with Warner Music India upstreaming some of the hugely popular artists on it.
Sky Digital India is already home to some of the country’s biggest Punjabi music stars including Bir, Harnoor, Kaka, Mankirt Aulakh, Navan Sandhu and Sunanda Sharma.
The company also manages premium Punjabi content-based YouTube channels with more than 50 million subscribers and aggregates releases from more than 50 Punjabi labels, as well as two leading mainstream independent Hindi labels.
WMG president – emerging markets, recorded music Alfonso Perez-Soto says, “This is a strategic partnership with a hybrid model that enables us to help develop artists’ careers directly. This approach will be hugely beneficial to Sky Digital’s artists who have the potential to be truly global stars. It’s also part of our mission to take culturally vibrant Punjabi music to a worldwide audience.”
Warner Music India managing director Jay Mehta adds, “The popularity of Punjabi music around the world has soared in recent years, amplified by a widespread diaspora and starting to cross over into the mainstream in several markets. This partnership creates a great platform for more artists to take their music global and have Punjabi music dominate global charts.”
Sky Digital India managing director Gurkaran Dhaliwal concludes, “This deal takes our collaboration to a new and a more dynamic level. Our synergetic relationship with Warner Music Group has already helped us expand our market share in India and significantly graced our artists with popularity among a wider audience. This joint venture allows music and homegrown talent to scale zenith of success by becoming globally loved and acclaimed stars.”
Gaming
MTG gaming chief Benninghoff joins NODWIN board as esports firm primes for IPO
The Gurugram-based esports firm is pursuing a public listing, has returned to profitability and is growing revenues by 42 per cent
GURUGRAM: NODWIN Gaming is moving fast. The Gurugram-based gaming and esports company has launched a pre-IPO fundraising round, appointed UBS as lead adviser for both the round and a subsequent public listing, and landed a heavyweight board director, all in one go.
The new board member is Arnd Benninghoff, executive vice president of gaming at Stockholm-listed Modern Times Group (MTG), who has overseen the group’s strategic investments and portfolio growth since 2014. He is no stranger to building things: Benninghoff has founded and built fifteen companies, served as chief digital officer at ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, managing director of SevenVentures, and chief executive of Holtzbrinck eLAB. He began his career as a journalist at Deutsche Presse Agentur and various TV networks, holds a Diplom-Kaufmann in business and administration from the University of Münster, and previously sat on the board of Edgeware AB.
The numbers back the ambition
NODWIN is not pitching a story without substance. The company has returned to EBITDA profitability and posted a 42 per cent year-on-year revenue surge, reaching $58.5m in the first nine months of FY2026. The pre-IPO round will combine a primary issuance to fund global expansion through organic growth and acquisitions, alongside a secondary sale to give existing shareholders some liquidity.
Akshat Rathee, co-founder and managing director of NODWIN Gaming, said Benninghoff understands “the entire lifecycle of the gaming and media ecosystem, from the boots-on-the-ground reality of building startups to the strategic complexity of managing multi-billion dollar global portfolios.”
Benninghoff, for his part, said the company “sits at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and technology, making it one of the most exciting players in the global gaming landscape today.”
A portfolio built for the global south
Founded in 2014 by Rathee and Gautam Virk, NODWIN has quietly assembled one of the more compelling esports portfolios outside the Western hemisphere. Its properties include DreamHack India and Comic Con India, and it recently acquired StarLadder, the Ukraine-based tournament organiser behind premier events in CS:GO and Dota 2. The company also serves as a long-term strategic marketing partner for the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), the world’s most prominent fighting game tournament, helping push it into new geographies.
Its geographic focus spans South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Backers include Nazara Technologies, KRAFTON, Sony Group Corporation, JetSynthesys, and the founders’ investment vehicle Good Game Investments.
What comes next
With UBS running the books, a board freshly reinforced with European media and gaming expertise, and revenue heading in the right direction, NODWIN is laying the groundwork deliberately. The esports industry has burned investors before with big promises and thin margins. NODWIN’s return to profitability, combined with a real portfolio of owned intellectual properties across gaming, music and youth culture, gives it a more credible runway than most. The IPO clock is now ticking.
