nCORE Games Raises $10 Million Series A Round With Participation From Animoca Brands, Galaxy Interactive And Polygon

nCORE Games announces a Series A funding round of $10 million to expand their gaming properties into the Metaverse and NFT space. Global leaders in interactive media and blockchain, Galaxy Interactive and Animoca Brands, co-led the round, with Polygon and HyperEdge also participating. Other prominent angels in the round included Amitabh Singhal (ex-Google), Sandeep Nailwal (Co-Founder of Polygon), Kanwaljit Bombra, Sohil Chand, Ashish Chand, Ram Madhvani, Rakesh Kaul, Mannan Adenwala, Sanjay Narang, Taj Haslani, Kristian Segerstrale (Game Industry veteran), Sanjay Gondal, Vedant Baali, Kartik Prabhakara, Peter Leung, Yashraj Akashi and Akshay Chaturvedi.

Galaxy Interactive has $650m AUM dedicated to investing in interactive entertainment, and has been one of the most active sector-focused funds in the space since 2018. The fund is well positioned to evaluate opportunities at the intersection of gaming, infrastructure, web3 and open finance. Galaxy Interactive is part of Galaxy Digital, a publicly-listed, diversified merchant bank specializing in digital assets and blockchain technology.

Animoca Brands is a global leader in gamification and blockchain with a large portfolio of over 150 investments in NFT-related companies and decentralized projects that are contributing to building the open metaverse.

Polygon is a protocol and a framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks. Aggregating scalable solutions on Ethereum supporting a multi-chain Ethereum ecosystem.

The Indian gaming market is set to explode and nCORE Games’ focus on localised and category-defining interactive media make it well placed to capitalize on the anticipated growth trajectory of the space. The company was co-founded in 2019 by gaming stalwarts Vishal Gondal and Dayanidhi M G. Gondal is a serial entrepreneur whose previous gaming venture, Indiagames, sold to Disney as one of the country’s largest gaming start-up exits, while Dayanidhi has decades of experience in running 100+ games in different genres and scaling up game studios like RockYou and Digital Chocolate. nCORE recently expanded its management team helmed by Kanwaljit Bombra as CEO, Alok Jain as the Head of Finance and Agastya Samat leading business development and legal operations.

nCORE Games has the best gaming talent in the continent for game development, publishing and LiveOps. This includes Dayanidhi M G, Ganesh Hande, Thara Jacob, Arindam Mitra and Manohar Reddy. The company has also made a significant investment in Dot9 Games, a studio run by Deepak Ail, Srinivasan Veeraraghavan, Kaiwan Pervez Yezdani, Prasad Ramdas; all also coming with decades of experience in interactive entertainment. The company has launched successful multiplayer titles like FAU:G, Pro Cricket Mobile, with several other titles planned to launch this year.

The company has plans to expand these titles and more new games into the web3 and play-to-earn sphere. It also has a platform-play through IceSpice, a gaming platform that comprises an underlying virtual currency, e-commerce store, esports layer and publishing house. IceSpice is helmed by Tejraj Parab, another industry veteran who’s last stint was at Reliance Jio heading their living room games vertical (JioFibre). Down the line, the company plans to allow players to sell and buy these assets openly and freely on the IceSpice marketplace. 

This additional investment will be used to provide the studios additional financial support to create a metaverse that will run across titles. Gamers stand to benefit from interoperability and true ownership of in-game customization assets.

Yat Siu, the executive chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands, said: "nCORE Games was started by experienced gaming industry professionals with strong pedigrees. This is one of our most promising investments in India, which has a large gaming market with a massive growth potential. nCORE Games has the right team to leverage blockchain and NFTs in games to deliver digital property rights to players, and we look forward to many successful products as we move toward a global open metaverse."

Sam Englebardt, General Partner at Galaxy Interactive said "The growth of gaming in India  is already undeniable and the market is poised to take another huge leap forward.  We’re thrilled to partner with Vishal, Dayanidi and the entire nCORE team at this thrilling moment in the expansion of India’s gaming ecosystem.”

Kanwaljit Bombra, CEO/President of nCORE Global said "With the establishment of this partnership, we are looking forward to seeing the brightest talent in India collaborate with the stalwarts of the global gaming ecosystem to take nCore to unprecedented levels of success within the Indian gaming industry and beyond."

Dayanidhi MG, CEO of Studio nCORE said “We at nCore have a strong pedigree in the gaming business having built large studios over the last two decades. We take bold steps,  do first of kind games from India, FAU-G being the first step. We are excited to embrace the emerging trends and technologies in the company of global leaders and highly successful funds, companies and veterans to take nCore to the next level with exponential growth.”

Tejraj Parab, CEO of IceSpice said “At IceSpice we are building tools to help game developers keep gaming communities engaged with innovative use of technologies. With the help of global leaders in technology investments, we are set to create new benchmarks in gaming with our Virtual Currencies, NFTs and gaming merchandise for gamers.”

About nCORE Games

nCORE Games is India’s premiere mobile games and interactive entertainment company. The company creates and publishes category defining mobile games for the Indian subcontinent. nCORE Games has expertise in midcore and live ops experts, Indian market knowhow and global publishing experience. Currently the company has released two mobile games: FAU:G and Pro Cricket Mobile.

About Galaxy Interactive

Galaxy Interactive has $650m AUM dedicated to investing in interactive entertainment, and has been one of the most active sector-focused funds in the space since 2018. We are well positioned to evaluate opportunities at the intersection of gaming, infrastructure, web3 and open finance. Galaxy Interactive is part of Galaxy Digital, a publicly-listed, diversified merchant bank specializing in digital assets and blockchain technology.

About Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands, ranked in the Financial Times list of High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2021, is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gamification. It develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilizing popular intellectual properties including Formula 1®, Marvel, WWE, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Doraemon. The company has multiple subsidiaries, including The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, GAMEE, nWay, Pixowl, Bondly, and Lympo. Animoca Brands has a growing portfolio of more than 100 investments in NFT-related companies and decentralized projects that are contributing to building the open metaverse, including Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Bitski, Harmony, Alien Worlds, Star Atlas, and others.

About Polygon

Polygon is a protocol and a framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks. Aggregating scalable solutions on Ethereum supporting a multi-chain Ethereum ecosystem. 

Tata Motors’ Flagship SUV, The Safari Joins The #DARK Range

Tata Motors, one of India’s leading automotive brands, today announced the launch of the Safari #DARK, the latest flagship addition to the company’s successful #DARK range. The Safari #DARK Edition is now open for bookings and available at dealerships nationwide starting at 19.05 lakhs (ex-showroom, Delhi).

The Safari #DARK will be clad in the signature Oberon Black exterior body colour, which many have now come to associate with the #DARK range. The mascots on the fender and the tailgate as well as the 18” Blackstone alloy wheels lend the exteriors the signature #DARK look. As part of the interiors, Safari #DARK offers a premium Blackstone Dark theme with exclusive touches to the key elements. Additions like the distinct dark finishes, special Blackstone Matrix dashboard & premium Dark upholstery (Nappa Granite Black colour scheme with Blue Tri Arrow Perforations and Blue Stitching) complete the insides of the Safari #DARK.

Available on the XT+/XTA+ & XZ+/XZA+ trims, the Safari #DARK will get other exclusive features such as Ventilated Seats on both 1st and 2nd Row, Air purifier and Android Auto & Apple Car Play over Wi-Fi.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Rajan Amba, Vice President, Sales, Marketing and Customer Service,  Passenger Vehicles, Tata Motors, said, “Launched in July last year, with a power-packed line-up featuring India’s safest premium hatchback – the Altroz, India’s first GNCAP 5star rated car - the Nexon, Tata Motors’ premium midsize SUV with the Land Rover DNA - the Harrier and India’s highest selling passenger electric car – the Nexon EV, the #DARK range has, in a very short span of time, become a mainstay of our New Forever range of passenger vehicles. This will be even truer now with the addition of Safari #DARK to the line-up, with the exciting & unique proposition that it has to offer to the customers.

Furthermore, with a high sales penetration across brands, the #DARK range has undoubtedly become a popular choice for customers. The Harrier #DARK, which was launched as a limited edition product initially, did extremely well and on popular customer demand, became an integral part of the Harrier portfolio. It offered an exciting & unique package to the customers, which further extended with the introduction of the #DARK range. We are confident that this stylish #DARK Edition will prove to be yet another reason for car-buyers to upgrade to the magnificent Safari.”

Launched last year, the Safari, has already achieved milestones of its own, completing the 10K rollout in just 6 months & 16k happy Safari owners already reclaiming their life since the launch. The #DARK is the latest treatment to be given to the legendary SUV post the introduction of its #Gold avatar, which also has been greatly loved by all.

Built on the very reliable OMEGARC architecture, which in turn is derived from Land Rover’s legendary D8 platform, the Safari possesses the perfect combination of stunning design and performance, meeting the needs of today’s SUV customers, who want plush and comfortable interiors, unparalleled versatility, go-anywhere experience, top-notch safety, and the most up-to-date connected car technology for a modern, multifaceted lifestyle.

HCL Technologies Ltd: Strong Revenue Performance; Margin Disappoints In Q3 FY 21-22

BUY

CMP: Rs1337  

Target Price: Rs1460

* HCLT delivered a strong revenue beat in Q3, aided by solid growth in Services and a sharp rebound in Products & Platforms (24.5% QoQ CC). Revenue grew by 7.6% QoQ in CC terms, the highest in the last 46 quarters. EBITM was flat at 19.0%, below expectations.

* It signed 8 large services and 8 product deals across financial services, technology & services, and life sciences & healthcare for a total new deal TCV of USD2.1bn (64% YoY). Strong broad-based demand and robust deal intake augur well for revenue acceleration.

* The company has reiterated double-digit revenue growth guidance in CC for FY22. It has also retained 19-21% EBITM guidance for FY22, considering supply-side challenges and planned investments in Mode 2 capabilities and markets.

* We tweak FY22-24 EPS estimates by -1% to 2.4%, factoring in Q3 revenue beat, margin miss and lower ETR. Revenue growth is encouraging; however, pressure on Services margin limits earnings upgrade. Retain Buy with a TP of Rs1,460 at 23x Dec'23E EPS.

Fantasy Sports Has Contributed INR 3000 Cr To The Indian Sports Economy In FY 20-21

In the last year, the Indian fantasy sports industry has contributed INR. 3000 Cr in FY 20-21 to the sports ecosystem in India, through a multitude of avenues like sponsoring sports teams, leagues, players buying rights, and even supporting the development of sports at a grassroots level. This number is expected to double in the next three years alongside the growth of the industry and its participating user base. Niti Aayog in a recommendation paper launched in Dec 2020, has already pegged India as an ideal candidate to become a global hub for the fast-growing industry of fantasy sports. Additionally, PwC in its report has stated that the online fantasy sports sector in India is expected to be worth USD 3.7 billion by 2024.

Fantasy sports is widely known to share a symbiotic relationship with real life sports. Data from a number of studies suggests that fantasy sports is helping increase engagement in sports, wherein users have an enhanced interest - in watching more live sports matches - that eventually contribute to the commercial growth of leagues and tournaments across various sports. The industry  has also witnessed a growth of sports content platforms serving the sports consumption needs of fantasy sports users who spend time on the internet to gather data and information as a part of their research to help them play better, while creating their virtual teams. These include watching sports matches, reading about sports players, team strengths, weather and ground conditions. Further, the  full potential of the industry is expected to be unlocked through the growth of non-cricket sports such as hockey, kabaddi, football, volleyball and the growing popularity of women sports through fantasy sports platforms.

Speaking at IAMAI’s India Digital Summit 2022, Harsh Jain, CEO and Co-founder of Dream Sports, brought into focus the contribution of Fantasy Sports towards making sports better. He shared that "Fantasy sports is showing that it can become one of the largest contributors to the economy, in terms of engagement, viewership and commercialisation”.

"With fantasy sports, we've seen a drastic increase in the number of Indians participating in tier two and three cricket (tournaments) and sports outside of cricket, like Kabaddi, basketball, hockey, football, handball, and volleyball, Since consumers have a chance to make a team and compete with people, they end up watching matches or parts of matches that they wouldn't otherwise. This changes the engagement completely and leads to a drastic shift in sports engagement and viewership, which also leads to better commercialization of sports”, he added.

Industry leaders and think tanks who analyse this sector are unified in their recommendation that formal recognition of the fantasy sports industry and providing for principle-led governance would enable the Indian fantasy sports operators to focus on innovation, achieve scale and expand their operations in a clear and principle-based regulatory environment. In doing so, they will in turn, join hands in India's mission of ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat’ by building a sporting culture right from grassroot level and make India a global sports superpower.

NxtGen Datacenter And Cloud Technologies Offers Enterprise Cloud Services To PeopleStrong To Cater To Its Growing User Base

* NxtGen set up PeopleStrong's entire User Acceptance Testing

* NxtGen's datacenter solution provided PeopleStrong with the capability to absorb newer technologies

NxtGen, a leading data centre and Digital Transformation services company, offers Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS) to PeopleStSrong, Asia's leading SaaS-based HR Technology company, and helped them set up their entire User Acceptance Testing (UAT). NxtGen provided a reliable solution to absorb newer technologies to the HR Tech company to increase its scalability.

IT infrastructure plays a critical role in running the business operations of PeopleStrong as their SaaS offerings are hosted on the cloud platform. Scalability, security, high availability, and performance are some of the key parameters that PeopleStrong wanted to focus on, to be the leader in the marketplace. Therefore, NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies assisted PeopleStrong to set up their entire UAT, which allows them to perform all the activities before going live. In addition, NxtGen provided PeopleStrong with a dev environment to enable them to conduct pre-production POCs, test setups of a few services, users and functionalities, integration validations and change management, etc. 

Commenting on the partnership, Rajesh Dangi, Chief Digital Officer NxtGen Datacenter and Cloud Technologies, said, "PeopleStrong was seeking for an on-demand scalable and easy to deploy infrastructure solution to cater for its exceedingly growing userbase. Hence, we suggested them our Enterprise Cloud Service which struck the right balance between the quality of service and cost optimization and offered PeopleStrong a competitive advantage while supporting its fundamental business goals of delivering exemplary HR tech products.”

By leveraging NxtGen's ECS for their UAT Environment, PeopleStrong reduced the size of their datacenter or and eliminated their datacenter footprint. In addition, UAT facilitated on NxtGen Cloud, helped PeopleStrong provide a significant return on investment and increase their customer confidence through reassurance that all requirements are met. This resulted in the reduction of the numbers of servers, the software cost, and the number of staff required, which resulted in a significant reduction of IT costs without impacting their organization's IT capabilities.

Saurabh Gugnani, Head IT & Security, PeopleStrong, said, "NxtGen is kind of a partner to believe in as they will stand with you for all your deliveries, and they are more like your own team." 

About NxtGen Datacenter & Cloud Technologies:

Headquartered in Bangalore, NxtGen Datacenter & Cloud Technologies is a well-established leader in cloud and datacenter technologies foraying into digital services and emerging technologies. Founded in 2012, NxtGen's Infinite Datacenter vision is a state where customers have elastic IT infrastructure available on-demand and pay-per-use, resulting in freeing IT budgets to invest in new application roll-outs. The key services include a complete cloud cover, fulfilled through its Infinite Datacenter, IT Infrastructure Services, IT continuity Services, IT Transformation Services, SpeedCloud™ HPC as a Service, SpeedCloud™ Edge, SpeedCloud™ MLOps as a service, etc. NxtGen is pioneering multiple new enablement services for its customers, which will help the company to accelerate its Digital Transformation agenda. For further details, visit: www.nxtgen.com 

DeHaat Completes Its 3rd Acquisition With Helicrofter, Expands Footprints In Western India

DeHaat, the technology-based platform offering end-to-end agricultural services to farmers in India, today announced its acquisition of Maharashtra-based B2B agri-input marketplace startup, Helicrofter. DeHaat’s co-founder & CEO, Shashank Kumar confirms that with the integration of Helicrofter, encompassing 2000+ agri-input retailers & 30 sellers across Maharashtra, DeHaat has now added another major Indian agricultural belt to their already expansive geographical footprint.

Currently India’s largest full-stack agritech startup, DeHaat has successfully pioneered the tech revolution across major agricultural belts of India. They serve over 700,000 farmers across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The addition of Helicrofter to their roster comes in line with the overarching goal of geographical expansion, as it marks DeHaat’s entry into Maharashtra. Founded in 2020 by Siddhartha Choudhary, Helicrofter is a farm input e-commerce platform designed to do away with supply chain inefficiencies in the rural ecosystem. Despite the pandemic, Helicrofter has been generating revenue since the very first month of its inception and has achieved annual revenue in excess of Rs. 50Cr. Prior to this, Siddhartha was the CEO at DestaGlobal, a farm input e-commerce startup, where he played a critical role in building the complete tech stack for input market linkage and enabling the company to drive revenue. He started his career with Monsanto where he worked as Product Manager for Cotton and Vegetable business.

DeHaat provides farmers with access to over 3,200 agricultural inputs, combined with AI-based customised crop advisory on pest & disease management, delivered via mobile app and call centres. The platform also aggregates 30+ crops from farmers on their network and directly supplies it to over 600 commodity bulk buyers, including retail chains, e-commerce players, FMCG giants, and SME food processors. In the last six months, DeHaat has also integrated financial services into its list of offerings. Having been backed by some of the biggest names in the business like Prosus Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, RTP Global, FMO and Omnivore, DeHaat closed their latest round of funding in October of 2021 by raising $115 Mn led by Sofina and Lightrock. 

Speaking on the acquisition, Amrendra Singh, Co-founder – DeHaat, says, “At DeHaat, we have built a crop and service agnostic, farmer-first model. Owing to our full-stack approach, we have been generating amazing responses from all our new, as well as existing geographies. We have been consistent with 35-40% growth in our network on a Month on Month basis, and this acquisition will cement our footprint into Maharashtra and thereby the Western part of India, which forms a major agri cluster for the nation. Over the years, DeHaat’s micro-entrepreneur network has grown to 4000 in Eastern and Central parts of India. With the addition of Helicrofter’s network, we will now add a wide range of prospective micro-entrepreneurs from Western India to this list.”

Commenting on the acquisition, Siddhartha Choudhary, Founder, Helicrofter adds, “We, at Helicrofter, are delighted to be joining hands with DeHaat. This union will undoubtedly help us add more value to the farmers and other stakeholders by strengthening our offerings, and accessing the wide variety and quality of services, as well as network access, that DeHaat possesses. What makes this partnership even more ideal for us is the complementing ideologies and synergy of function that will enable us to work together in materialising our vision for the farmer communities that we jointly serve. I am happy that all employees of Helicrofter are settling in well and are eager to scale DeHaat to newer heights.”

Nikhil Toshniwal, Co-founder, FarmGuide, says, “The last 1 year of working with DeHaat has been a very gratifying experience. Sheer knowledge of the colleagues and collaborative work culture have given an entrepreneur like me immense opportunity to sharpen the skills & continue experimentation.  Exciting challenges are consistently posed and resolved, making it an extremely potent and dynamic environment to work in. Building tech-enabled convenience for farmers and an agri-stack platform was at the core of our offerings at FarmGuide, and I am super excited every single day to see them amplifying our growth plan at DeHaat to reach millions of the farmers. I am sure many other entrepreneurs like me who are part of DeHaat resonate with the fact that our skills and enthusiasm are on a growth journey with the organization.

This is the 3rd acquisition for DeHaat on their path for inorganic growth. Just last year, they acquired FarmGuide, which allowed them to integrate Satellite-based crop advisory solutions for farmers. Being well capitalised and the largest full-stack agritech player in the business, DeHaat is aiming for a pan India expansion of farmer communities & its Micro-Entrepreneur network over the next 10-12 months.

Hero MotoCorp Has Announced A New Investment Of Rs 420 Crore In Ather Energy

Aligned with its vision - ‘Be the Future of Mobility’, Hero MotoCorp, the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters, has announced a new investment of up to Rs. 420 Crore in Ather Energy.

The company’s board has approved the investment in one or more tranches. Prior to the proposed investment, Hero MotoCorp’s shareholding in Ather Energy was 34.8% (on a fully diluted basis). Post the investment, the shareholding will increase and the exact shareholding will be determined upon completion of capital raise round by Ather.

Commenting on the development, Swadesh Srivastava, Head – Emerging Mobility Business Unit, Hero MotoCorp said, “In keeping with our vision 'Be the Future of Mobility', we are working on a variety of emerging mobility solutions. We were one of the early investors in Ather Energy and have continued to expand our association over the years. We are excited to see the growth of Ather Energy in recent years. Our aim is to expand the Hero MotoCorp brand promise and make EV ownership a convenient, hassle-free, and rewarding experience for customers across the world.” 

Hero MotoCorp is an early investor in Ather Energy and has been a part of its growth story since 2016. The company is also exploring collaborations with Ather Energy in various spheres, such as charging infrastructure, technology and sourcing.

Hero MotoCorp is addressing the emerging mobility opportunity in a comprehensive manner through a range of organic and inorganic initiatives. 

It is gearing up to unveil its first Electric Vehicle (EV) in the month of March this year. The vehicle is being developed at the company’s world-class R&D set-up – the Center of Innovation and Technology (CIT) in Jaipur and the Tech Center Germany (TGG) near Munich – and will be produced at the company’s manufacturing facility at Chittoor in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

Through its investments and partnerships with external partners like Ather Energy and Gogoro Inc., Hero MotoCorp is also working towards building the entire EV ecosystem – from products to technology, to sales, service, customer care, operations, and innovation.

Sustainability and Emerging Mobility is a priority area for Hero MotoCorp and the company continues to enhance its efforts in this direction.