Naspers to buy stake in online fantasy gaming startup, Dream11

Nasper’s Ltd, a South Africa based firm, is planning to buy a stake of about $100 million in online fantasy gaming startup, Dream11, from Kalari Capital. Two firms – ‘Think Investments’ and ‘Multiple Alternate Asset Management’ are said to be aware of the matter.  

On the condition of anonymity, two people aware of the matter said that, after the bumper earnings from Indian Premier League and Cricket World Cup, Dream 11 is now looking for a valuation of $2.5 billion. This is more than double the previous $1.1 billion that it valued at in April.

Dream11, Multiples, Naspers and Kalaari did not respond to emails waiting for comment.

An investor tracking the company clarified on condition of anonymity that Dream11 has a significant inbound interest from investors and they don’t need to raise a large round. He added that when these companies are improving fast, they prefer having multiple sets of investors. These secondary rounds give early investors exit at good multiples and provide the founder the valuations they want.

The company has been profiting since a long time now. The value of transactions on its platform have risen to a run rate of $2 billion for the last quarter. The current revenue as per the investor is nearly $150 million.

Dream11 that offers games like cricket, kabaddi and football, was founded by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Seth. It is a platform where users can win money from a reward pool, based on the players they pick and the actual results of the game. Some of the official partners of the game are the International Cricket Council (ICC), the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Because of the lack of competition in the space, Dream11 is one of the fastest growing tech startups in India. It has a large user base and great following of sports, especially cricket.

Dream 11 earlier having nearly 50 million subscribers in February is currently aiming to double the number by the end of this year.

 

 

 

 

 

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