Gaming
Nostra emerges as India and Southeast Asia’s largest mobile gaming platform
Mumbai: Nostra (formerly Glance Gaming), a division of consumer technology company Glance, announced that it has surpassed 75 million monthly active users in online gaming through Glance Lock Screen, making it India and Southeast Asia’s largest mobile gaming platform. Of this, 25 million users are active monthly on live game streaming and esports tournaments. By 2024, Nostra aims to reach 200 million monthly active users globally by expanding to new device surfaces and global markets.
Nostra’s vision is to develop a single destination for gaming globally with a wide array of experiences for every gamer to discover, play and watch games, and connect and compete with fellow gamers. Its frictionless experience allows users to access games on the smartphone lock screen without downloading them or unlocking their phones. In addition to its scale of gamers, diversity of games and frictionless experience, Nostra aims to uplevel the gaming experience by offering formats and solutions that are interactive and experiential at once.
Online gaming is one of the fastest growing industries globally. In India alone, the online gaming market is estimated to cross seven billion dollars by 2025.
InMobi Group co-founder & COO of Glance Piyush Shah said, “Glance is fully committed to its role in the growth of the gaming industry and Nostra is a huge part of this vision. In 2022 alone, the top three games on Nostra were played a whopping 423 million times on Glance lock screen.Users are not only playing games on Nostra, but also engaging deeply with game streams. They clocked over 470 million hours watching game streams in 2022. We plan to take Nostra’s proposition that users clearly love global and aim to reach over 200 monthly active users in the next two years on the back of Glance lock screen and several other device partnerships.”
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.
