Gurugram headquartered NODWIN Gaming, Asia’s leading esports startup and an independent subsidiary of gaming giant Nazara Technologies has acquired the gaming and adjacent IP business of Only Much Louder (OML) Entertainment for INR 73 Crore (~$10 Million). The transaction will provide partial liquidity to OML Entertainment shareholders, including CA Media.
Ajay Nair, MD of OML Entertainment, will join the NODWIN Gaming board as part of the transaction and will work with Akshat Rathee, MD of NODWIN Gaming, and the management team to ensure smooth integration of the OML IPs and help in growing NODWIN Gaming’s business.
The OML Entertainment is known for managing some of India’s biggest gaming & entertainment creators such as Tanmay Bhat, Samay Raina, Suhani Shah, etc. and for owning and executing storied IPs such as the BACARDÍ NH7 Weekender (described by The Guardian as “India’s answer to Glastonbury”), well-attended comedy touring properties such as LOLstars and Headliners and India’s biggest hip-hop league – Breezer Vivid Shuffle. OML Entertainment also works with some of the biggest brands in India to produce well-known properties such as Levi’s Music Week and the hugely successful YouTube FanFest.
This deal will also help in enhancing NODWIN’s esports IPs including Dreamhack, Dew Arena, and India Premiership using IPs that OML has created. NODWIN also claims that post the acquisition of its gaming biz, the company will continue to work on its non-gaming IPs and scale its over-the-top (OTT) offering.
Akshat Rathee, Managing Director, NODWIN Gaming said, “NODWIN Gaming strongly believes that continuous growth in the IP portfolio is central to building a vibrant ecosystem of fans, talent, broadcasters, and brands.
This has been the essence of NODWIN Gaming since the early days of creating The India premiership or Dew Arena. The addition of some of the largest IPs in India like NH7 weekender is going to accelerate the massification of esports and gaming entertainment across the spectrum of fans and brands. The multi-faceted talent that joins us cuts across gaming and pop culture and lays the perfect foundation for NODWIN Gaming to create more IPs.
The proven capability of the brilliant team that joins us from OML Entertainment will further ensure that we can execute and monetize our IPs.”
Ajay Nair, Managing Director, OML Entertainment, added, “We believe in the convergence of different pop culture genres and have seen that this has already happened across several platforms and IPs. It makes a lot of sense to consolidate the strengths that OML Entertainment and NODWIN Gaming have in the live IPs and gaming spaces.
Over the past years, our experience working with NODWIN Gaming has been very fruitful and we are confident that our live IPs and the teams that execute them have found a good home at NODWIN Gaming. OML Entertainment will continue to focus on building its OTT content production, talent management, and branded content businesses. I look forward to working with Akshat and the NODWIN Gaming team to deliver on the true potential of this partnership.”
OML Entertainment clocked an impressive INR 91 crore in total revenue in FY20 (pre-covid) with an EBITDA of ~10%. The startup also claims to have clocked INR 170 crore in total revenue from all its businesses in FY2020 pre-covid times. OML Entertainment will continue to consolidate its non-gaming creator-driven content and talent management businesses as it scales its OTT offerings and branded content marketing suite of services that currently works with over 700 creators across the world.