Gaming
Badminton royalty at BWF India Open 2023
Mumbai: Badminton royalty will descend on India for the BWF India Open 2023, which will begin on 18 January and be exclusively live-streamed on JioCinema as the second tournament of the BWF World Tour 2023.
In addition to the defending men’s champion Lakshya Sen, P.V. Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Prannoy Roy, and 2022 Men’s Doubles Champion pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, the event will feature Men’s and Women’s World No. one Viktor Axelsen of Denmark and Akane Yamaguchi of Japan, respectively.
The competition will take place at the K. D. Jadhav Indoor Hall in 2023, when it will be promoted to a BWF Super 750 event. The winner of the 2017 India Open, Sindhu, will compete against Thai shuttler Supanida Katethong in Round one. Other Indians competing in the women’s singles event include Malvika Bansod, Aakarshi Kashyap, and former champion Saina Nehwal.
While Kidambi Srikanth, the champion of the 2015 edition, will play Axelsen in the opening round of the Men’s Singles, Sen will begin his title defence against fellow countryman H.S. Prannoy.
Rankireddy and Shetty, who won the gold medal in men’s doubles at the Commonwealth Games, will defend their championship against J Bay and L Molhede of Denmark. In the women’s doubles event, M Lambert and A Tran of France will compete against G Gopichand and T Jolly, while Shikha Gautam and A Bhat will take on M Thinaah and P Tan of Malaysia.
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.
