Please note that this is an updated story inclusive of updated information. The story was originally filed on Thursday, 16th July.
Nazara Technologies Limited has finally completed its majority stake acquisition of 51% in Paper Boat Apps, after completing second & final tranche of transaction by virtue of share swap. Apparently, Nazara Technologies has completed the acquisition of Paper Boat in two tranches, with first tranche of transaction taking place in October last year.
The value of this acquisition deal is close to Rs 83 crore, valuing Paper Boat Apps in the excess of INR 150 crore. By virtue of share swap, Nazara has allotted equity shares worth Rs 43 crores to Paper Boat’s co-founders Ms Anshu Dhanuka and Mr Anupam Dhanuka.
According to the regulatory filings, Nazara has allotted 4,12,088 equity shares of Rs 4 each at a premium of Rs 724 to Anshu Dhanuka and Mr Anupam Dhanuka.
Below is a break-down of the share allotment
Techpluto has learned that Nazara could have completed the acquisition of Paper Boat much earlier but had to delay due to COVID-19 crises. Notably, barely a month back the Mumbai headquarter gaming company had acquired Halaplay by acquiring Kae Capital’s stake in the same company.
Nazara said that since its first tranche of funding in October, Nazara’s Kiddopia app has been downloaded more than 5 million parents around the world and currently has over 300,000 active subscribers.
Nazara also exclusively informed Techpluto that when the company invested first tranche of funds in Paper Boat in October last year, the latter’s annual run rate was only Rs 50 crore. But since then its annual run rate has grown at accelerated pace and today it is witnessing annualized revenue run rate of over INR 175 crores while its revenue is been growing over 300%.
Anupam Dhanuka, Co-Founder and CEO, Kiddopia said that the company is continuing with its robust growth, claiming that the company just concluded its best-ever month (in terms of performance) and we expect our top line to grow 2X in annual revenues by March 2021.”
Commenting on Nazara’s acquisition, Dhanuka said “investment from Nazara has helped us focus on product enhancement and marketing, thereby leading to a 3X growth in subscriber base.”
Responding to Paper Boat’s acquisition, Nitish Mittersain, Founder and MD, Nazara Technologies Ltd said “Gamified edtech is the only way to deliver high-quality learning to young kids on digital devices. Kiddopia is a perfect example of this overlap between gaming and learning and their popularity amongst parents and kids speaks for itself. Nazara is very happy to add Kiddopia to our portfolio catering to over 100 million monthly active users on our network.”
Paper Boat Apps is essentially a studio engaged in designing & developing edutainment apps for kids. Founded in 2013, the company is best known for its Kiddopia app, which offers interactive games and activities to promote cognitive development and overall growth in early age Kids.
The company claims that the app has become such a huge hit that it even reached the #1 rank in the Kids category on the US App Store.
As for Nazara, Paper Boat marks the completion of yet another acquisition. The company has indeed been aggressive in pursuing the acquisition strategy, with the startup till date acquiring 7 companies. Here are the names of companies that Nazara has acquired so far: Halaplay Technologies, Paper Boat Apps, SportUnity, SportsKeeda, Nodwin Gaming, MyGama and Djuzz.
The company also owns 27.42% stake in quiz gaming company CrimzonCode.
