iWorld
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos tells Bollywood content is Prime motive
MUMBAI: Jeff Bezos is used to thinking big. He is also used to controversies. So even as his plan to invest a billion dollars in Amazon’s India operation got a lot of press and protests and a snub from commerce minister Piyush Goyal (at a time when the competition commission is investigating "predatory pricing"), the billionaire sat down with Indian superstar Shahrukh Khan and Zoya Akhtar for a half hour tete-a-tete around his prime video service in Mumbai during an event where the crème de la crème of Bollywood was invited.
And what he said must have sent a lot of flutters in the hearts of the creative talent that is seeking to put their films and originals on the Prime Video platform.
“It''s a vehicle to make fantastic content and from a business point of view, it works for us as well. Prime Video is doing well all over the world – Germany, Japan, America, everywhere,” he admitted to Shahrukh. “But nowhere is it doing as well as it is in India where our watch times have grown over six times in two years.”
With that kind of growth, he has been more than encouraged to double down investment in original content.
“The whole world is witnessing ‘a golden age of television.’ When you look at TV series today, they are really good in terms of quality. They're as good as the very best movies have ever been. And now we're getting the best storytellers and actors to come and do TV,” he disclosed.
"This is one of those businesses where the viewer is always looking for something fresh. And so you can never find a formula because as soon as you find the formula, it's not fresh anymore. So it really takes human ingenuity… I want Amazon Studios to be all over the world."
He further highlighted that he wants Amazon Studios to be "the most talent friendly studio in the world.”
"One of the hardest things that humans do is tell riveting, engaging, inspiring stories. When you get it right, it's a lever that can change the world," he pointed out.
The Prime Video India team used the ocassion to showcase seven new shows which are to make their debut on the streaming service: "Dilli", "Bandish Bandits", "Paatal Lok", "Gormint", "Mumbai Diaries-26/11", "The Last Hour" and "Sons of Soil- Jaipur Pink Panthers”. Additionally, new seasons of Mirzapur, Four More Shots Please, Breathe, The Family Man, and Inside Edge were also announced.
Prime Video’s original team is headed internationally by James Farell, while Vijay Subramaniam heads the India piece and has been driving most of the shows which have found traction with audiences as well as from critics.
The Prime service is subscription driven and is priced at Rs 999 a year in India promising acess to the streaming service as well as overnight delivery of products from the ecommerce platform. In the US, it’s upwards of $100 a year or $12.99 a month. It has, in recent times, launched a free advertising video on demand service ImdbTV, offering its originals and movies to viewers who don’t mind watching TVCs.
Among those who attended the Mumbai event included: Kamal Haasan, Kabir Khan and his wife Mini Mathur, Farhan Akhtar with Shibhani Dandekar, Ritesh Sidhwani with his wife Dolly, AR Rahman (who later performed), Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh, actor Pankaj Tripathi, Vidya Balan and Siddharth Roy Kapur, Rajkumar Rao, Richa Chadda, Manoj Bajpai, and Vivek Oberoi.
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.
