Nazara Technologies Ltd (NSE: NAZARA) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Aug. 13, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Nitish Mittersain — Joint Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Anupriya Sinha Das — Head of Corporate Development
Terry Lee — Chief Executive Officer
Akshat Rathee — Managing Director and Co-founder
Anirudh Kumar — Chief Strategy Officer
Rohit Sharma — Executive Director
Puneet Singh — Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Jinesh Joshi — Analyst
Rahul Jain — Analyst
Aditi Parmar — Analyst
Sachin Dixit — Analyst
Kunal Bajaj — Analyst
Abhishek Banerjee — Analyst
Rahil — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Nazara Technologies Earning Conference Call hosted by PL Capital. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Stars and then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Jinesh Joshi from PL Capital. Thank you. And over to you, sir.
Jinesh Joshi — Analyst
Yeah. Good morning everyone. On behalf of PL Capital, I welcome you all to the 1QFY 26 earnings call of Nazara Technology. We have with us the management represented by Mr. Nitish Mittasen, CEO and GMD Mrs. Anupriya Das, Head of Corporate Development at Nazara Mr. Rohit Sharma, Executive Director at Nazara Mr. Rakesh Shah, CFO of Nazara Mr. Terry Lee, CEO, Fusebox Games Mr. Akshat Rati, Founder of Nordwin. Mr. Aniruddha Kumar, CSO Sportskeeda. Mr. Senthil Govindan, CEO, Dataworks and Mr. Puneet Singh, Co Founder of Moonshine. I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Nitish Mittasen for opening comments.
Over to you, sir.
Nitish Mittersain — Joint Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Sure. Thank you. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us this morning. In Q1FY26, Nazara reported revenues of Rupees 498.8 crores. That was up 99% year on year and an EBITDA of 47.4 crores up 90% year on year, our core gaming business delivered a healthy 24.4% EBITDA margin. PAT from continued operations was rupees 36.4 crores and overall PAT stood at 51.3 crores reflecting 118% year on year increase. These results underscore the strength of our IP led gaming strategy. Delivering strong top line growth alongside disciplined cost management and a focus on growth with profitability. We are seeing the early benefits of a sharpened focus on owning and scaling high quality gaming IPs and our centers of excellence in user acquisition and analytics are taking shape and will enable us to acquire, retain and monetize players more efficiently Going forward.
We continue to build on these things with a steady pipeline of titles designed to drive growth across multiple genres and geographies. In the coming quarters. During this quarter, we took a strategic step by proposing the consolidation of Northwind Gaming. This will sharpen our focus on core gaming while enabling Northwind to pursue its esports ambitions aggressively. We also strengthened our leadership team with the appointment of Mr. Rohit Sharma as Executive Director. Rohit brings over 25 years of experience in gaming and digital media and his expertise will be instrumental in advancing our IP growth strategy across genres, platforms and markets.
The board has approved two shareholder initiatives. Firstly a subdivision of one equity share of face value rupees four each into two equity shares of face value rupees two each and a bonus issue in the ratio of 1:1. At Nazara, our vision is to build a globally relevant and highly respected durable gaming company from India and we believe we are well on our way to achieve the same. With disciplined capital deployment, strong IP ownership and operational excellence, we are confident in our ability to scale into a global gaming platform that can compete with the best. With that, I will now hand over to Anupriya to discuss segment wise performance.
Over to you Anupriya.
Anupriya Sinha Das — Head of Corporate Development
Thank you Nitish Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today in Q1FY26 on a year on year basis, our gaming segment revenue grew by 160% and our EBITDA grew by 311% with an overall EBITDA margin of the gaming segment at 24.4%. Moving to Curve Games, Nazara acquired 100% equity of Curve Digital Entertainment for an equity value of INR 247 crores in an all cash deal earlier this year. Founded in 2005 and headquarters in London, Curve Group is an independent video game publisher focused on platforms such as PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, Nintendo Switch and the PC.
Curve Games posted revenue of an EBITDA of INR 54.6 crores and INR 20.7 crores respectively in Q1 FY26. Curve is building further momentum with recent releases like Wobbly Life on Nintendo Switch and new and new Human flat levels which are performing well across platforms. FY26 is going to is marked by operational discipline which has freed up capital to invest in upcoming IP LED opportunities including two invite only Nintendo Switch to titles Fusebox kits. The Fusebox revenue grew 49% year on year to INRs 73 crores in Q1FY26. EBITDA during the same period was INRs 10.4 crores reflecting a 14.3% EBITDA margin.
Fusebox has successfully expanded from a single game studio at the time of Nagara investment to a multi game studio having launched a new Big Brother game in May 25th and two marquee IP based games in the pipeline. In Q1FY26 we ramped UA spent behind the global launches of the Big Brother game and Love island games that is positioning us for sustained long term growth with late investments expecting to start returning from Q2FY26 onwards. Moving to Kidopia, Kidopia posted revenues of INR 45.4 crores and EBITDA of INR 8.5 crores with EBITDA margin of 18.6% in Q1FY26.
In Q1FY26 while investing in original content, Ketopia ramps up its IP LED content, launching a Barbie game island in April, Davy John Playroom, a Moonbug Little Angel IP in May and PJ Masks activity in partnership with Hasbro in June and partnerships with Animarch for Poyo and Moocs are also team launched. Kirovia ended this quarter with 227k subscribers as compared to the roughly around 228k subscribers at the end of the last quarter, denoting stabilization attained through more disciplined UA and IP introduction. These strategic investments are expected to drive organic growth going forward. Moving to Animal Jam, revenue increased by 12.1% to INR 26.4 crores while EBITDA also grew by a robust 55% to INR 5.9 crores on a year on year basis in Q1 FY26.
Animal Jam saw IAP momentum from strong player engagement, community events and social contests supported by new launches across bundles, portions and features. It also progressed on its Slinky partnered casual mobile prototype whose soft launch is targeted for FY26. Nazara completed the acquisition of Smash through NCLT process in early FY26, making the strategic expansion of its offline gaming footprint. Smash delivered revenue of INR 8.1 crores and an EBITDA of INR 3.3 crores in the consolidation period starting from the 6th of June. In this quarter, Nazara is closely collaborating with the management on revenue diversification, user experience upgrades, center reform, Business Schmidt to achieve a fully revamped mash relaunch in FY27 Panky Monkey in Q1 FY26 the revenue expanded by 6.5% year on year to INR 4.9 crores and EBITDA also grew to 2.3 crores during the same period.
Pankhi Monkey closed Q1 with 12 operational centers across India, opening a new center at Surat in the mid quarter. It continues to expand aggressively in the current year and we’re looking to add another 8 to 9 centers in this year. Moving to PokerBazi Moonshine Technologies PokerBazi parent is accounted as an associate and not consolidated in our book. Moonshine reported the highest quarterly net revenue of INR 191.8 crores in Q1 FY26 with an EBITDA of negative 73.9 crores. Crunch on EBITDA loss due to front loading marketing costs on account of IPF. PokerWazi also delivered strong operating metrics in Q1 with gross gaming revenue GGR up 46% year on year, gross transactional value up 23% and deposits up 19%.
The IPL campaign drove record DAUs and MAUs and sustained user liquidity, while the May 25 poker bazi upgrade significantly boosted user engagement moving to other segments as Nitish mentioned in July 2025 Nazara announced the strategic deconsolidation of Nordville subject to shareholder approval, reclassifying it as an associate to align with its shareholder sharpened focus on core gaming and IT partnership. Core Gaming IT the deconsolidation is subject to shareholder approval and will enable Nordwin to independently raise growth capital and operate with greater strategic and financial flexibility by allowing Nagara to allocate capital to core gaming businesses. In Q1FY26, Nordvin posted a strong revenue growth of 49% with an EBITDA of negative 11 growth.
Continued growth in esports even based on popular IP such as PUBG and Valorant aided revenue growth for Nordville in this quarter. Moving to Sports Kira Sports Kira’s US organic traffic declined post the Google March 4 update, which led to a 21% year on year revenue drop to INR 48.1 crores and EBITDA 5.4 crores, prompting swift cost optimization through content cost renegotiation and rightsizing. Management expects traffic stability in the coming quarters, drawing a recovery experience from a similar algorithm. Impact on its PSN properties Other properties in the portfolio are delivering strong results with stable growth and standout performances from recent acquisitions such as Prime Timer, ITR, TJR and Toke Central.
For the first time in Q1FY26CS and broke even positioning absolute source for a good rebound and sustained growth on a consolidated basis. Data works including space and time reported 313% year on year revenue growth and 283% EBITDA growth, delivering 106.1 crores and INR 2 point in revenue and 2.6 crores in EBITDA. In Q1, the combined operations and unlock client synergies, broaden cross market offerings and open access to new industry segments. Databox also continues on its path to shift higher margin product lines within its independent ad tech operations. Further space and time acquisition is being leveraged to scale UK growth.
With this I conclude my remark and we will now open the call for Q and A. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, wait for a moment while the question queue assembled. Ladies and gentlemen, we request you to please limit your questions to two per participants and rejoin the queue for the follow up question. The first question is from the line of Rahul Jain from Daulat Capital.
Please go ahead.
Rahul Jain
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Firstly, you know the gaming business is now led by two of the newer additions to the portfolio. So it would be good to understand how we should see the seasonality and scale potential in Fusebox and the crowd parts of the business. If you could throw some lines.
Nitish Mittersain
Hi Rahul, this is Nitish. So for Fuse Box games you know, the seasonality, I think for all gaming businesses the seasonality is, you know, the October to December, which is Q3 is usually the best quarter due to Christmas holidays etc. Given a lot of the revenues are coming from western markets. I think in addition to that, specifically for Fuse Box, the seasonality is also mirrored by the airing of the TV shows that the games are made on. So for example, Love island was airing, you know, in Q1 and Q2, especially in Q2 in the US which did very well.
So you would see a spike in revenues during that period. So I think there will be certain nuances specific to each business. At the same time, an overarching seasonality with a peak of revenues in Q3 for gaming business will continue as well.
Rahul Jain
Right? You’re saying Q2 is better for the US market and there we are also expected to announce another ip. So thus any color you could give on the scalability potential of this business from a two, three year perspective.
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, sure. You know what I can do is since we have Terry who is the CEO of Fusebox on the call, the first time he’s attending the call, I can ask him to, you know, answer what he’s working on currently. But largely we are seeing Fusebox move from, you know, a one title company to a multi title Company now with four titles, you know, either launched or in the process of being launched. So Terry, over to you to talk a bit about the current status at Fusebox. Thank you Nitesh and thank you for the question.
So yeah, as you can see since been acquired by Nazara, our main focus has been leveraging some of the center of excellence at Nazara as well as our core engine to expand away from being a single IP to multi IP studio. And that is essentially going to be the continued plan moving forward. As you can see we’ve already release one game. We’re due to release Big Boss very soon and then we already have another IP which the team are actively building right now with a plan to release early next year. So yeah, basically leveraging the support from Nazara and continuing to build out and acquire new IPs with our expanded presence.
That is essentially the plan for the Fusebox team.
Rahul Jain
Yeah, thanks a lot for that. And just last bit from my side, two questions on the east coast side of the business. One is what is driving the additional losses in the margin business? Is it specific to this quarter and gradually it should come off? Is there an annual plan on what kind of number we could see there? And secondly the austerity comment that you have made on the sports business, does that mean this pain could last slightly longer? While you have also commented that your PFM PFM study suggest this would revise as at least one or two quarters.
Any color on that should be great.
Nitish Mittersain
Good questions Rahul. I’ll again have the leaders of each business to answer. So Akshat, maybe you can come in for the northern side of things.
Akshat Rathee
Hi everyone. I think the simple answer to this question is look esports and youth culture that is being built right now in the world. As you can see from our very high revenue growth even at a very large base right now is predominantly led by a very strong IP push across the world. Most companies in the world are pushing for newer and newer IPs and so does not win, right? So while we have Playground, we are expanding Comic Con into more locations this year. We are also going and launching more seasons of Playground as we go forward.
Our BGMS series continues to go ahead and do extremely well on Star Sports. But we are also going and competing not only in the Indian market, we are also competing everywhere in the world market. And as we go ahead and keep on focusing on global growth and our mission is to be the top two companies in youth entertainment across the world in the next three to five years, we are on track to go ahead and do that. We are already number three and number four in the world. We want to be number one and number two and I think if that is the intention for us to go ahead and do, they will be the experiment.
Some experiments that I do and some acquisitions that I do will not work. I have two explicit failures that we’ve tried that have not done well. One was the wings one which we talked about earlier in a couple of quarters and Fleecs has also not done well, predominantly because the German slowdown and the European slowdown per se in the world and including the Taiwan risk that comes and because of US sanctions on different parts of the world. So those headwinds keep on coming in between what we are trying to do and some of those investments that we try will not work out on the other side.
Some of them work out so phenomenally that it’s not funny. Like Comic Con is expanded from five to eight last year. We are going to do 11 this year. We’ve just announced that and we continue to go ahead and take it global across the world. We’ll be going to more than two, three countries as we go forward. We keep on going and working towards building an IP portfolio for your entertainment, including esports. We will have one or two of these off chances that are there not when first Phase does normal growth out of its own accruals as such.
But once in a while we will have these errors that will come in. We’ve also talked long and hard about the fact that should we not do this, should we be very conservative and just hunker down and do this? And we’ve decided that it’s actually better for us to go ahead and do well across the world and go ahead and keep on delivering what we want to go out and do. And that’s been a lot of support in helping us raise funding from around the world is very beneficial and very, very appreciated by us. They’ve not sold a single share in us.
They believe in us as much as they believe when we got invested in by them. But they’re also giving us the freedom to leave the parents home and go fly and do wonderful things. So we very appreciate it. I know I’ve just answered your question, but hopefully this also sets context for someone else who might be asking questions.
Nitish Mittersain
Thanks Akshat and Rahul. I hope that answered your question on Nordvin for sportskeeda. Obviously, you know this last quarter has been disappointing for us after, you know, really fantastic run over many, many quarters and last two, three years. But we are very hopeful that this will recover and Anirudh, who’s a chief strategy officer of Sportster, can deep dive into it, explain, you know, what has been really the cause of this problem as well as what are the actions taken and what is our expectation going forward and also talk about some of the new properties that have been doing quite well for us.
Aniruddh, over to you.
Anirudh Kumar
Yeah, thank you. And thank you for the question. I think, you know, we’ve been hit obviously by a, by a Google Core update. This is something that happens occasionally to sites, not very frequently, but it does tend to happen in our internal portfolio. As we mentioned, it happened to pfn. We had similar austerity measures at that point in time to make sure that we are leaner to figure out how much time this would take and then we be flexible on the operational side. So to answer your question, specifically on the austerity measures, they’ve been carefully calibrated to ensure that we both have a chance of really bouncing back.
But at the same time, if the, as the period of recovery gets extended a little bit more than what we expect, then we are lean enough to ensure profitability and operational stability. So that’s on the sportskeeda.com side. As Nitish mentioned, in our entire portfolio right now, only sportskeeda.com is affected. If you look at what we have disclosed about our other properties, both Hope Central Delta’s Gaming, itr, TJR Wrestling and now primetimer, all of them have been growing fairly healthily. In fact, the measures that we put in place for PFN last year have actually helped quite a bit post their recovery as well.
So we’ve had the first non season quarter where PFN has actually been profitable. That sort of puts us in a very good position as we enter into season in September. So the outlook is that, you know, it should ideally base both on our internal observations as well as some of the external sites that we’ve observed. It should take anywhere between, you know, one to two quarters. That’s the, that’s the typical timeline. If it is, you know, maybe slightly more or slightly less than that, then we have the flexibility and hence the austerity measures and the cost.
Does that answer your question?
Rahul Jain
Yeah, yeah. Just one more. The good part is that the other cases are doing well. They’re too small right now to lift up again. So is it safer to assume that on an annualized basis revenue could be retained at FY25 level or. It would be difficult given that one or two quarters including the C6 is important quarter, we might not see that kind of a momentum. So we could be down this year. Is this a possibility?
Anirudh Kumar
So right now we are not commenting on the annual revenue figures. The idea is that we look at how the next quarter plays out and how all of our properties do together once that is. There’s just been one quarter since this hit has happened. Luckily we got into action really early on just to ensure that we are well prepared. But as things go along in the next quarter or so we’ll give an update on what.
Rahul Jain
Sure, that’s very helpful. Thank you.
Nitish Mittersain
Thank you Anirudh. We can move on to the next set of questions.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to the participant, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touchstone telephone. The next question is from the line of Aditi Parmal from Iwealth. Please go ahead.
Aditi Parmar
Hello.
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah hi Aditi, this is Nitish.
Aditi Parmar
Hi sir. Sir wanted to understand what would be included in the other income because it has come so high this quarter.
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, I think the largest contributor to our other income is gain that we we booked due to Stan, the investment we had made in Stan. So we had made an investment in Stan last year. Stan is a gaming community product which is doing extremely well. And we did a follow on investment of a million dollars earlier this year I think last month. And you’ve had many other marquee investors participate for a total fundraiser, approximately 9, $10 million including Google and Bandai Namco and many other well reputed companies. So we’re quite excited about that business and it’s growing extremely fast.
But the other income largely comprises of a 66 crore gain on Stack.
Aditi Parmar
Okay, okay. And sir, on the Curve game, can you like elaborate on how will the growth come and on back of what IPS would it be? How can we see the future growth in this segment in this company?
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, sure. I’m going to call in Rohit Sharma who’s joined us as an executive director to answer this one. Given Rohit’s, you know, vast experience in the PC and console gaming space in the last many years, he’s actually you know working very closely with the Curve team on our behalf and we’ll be able to answer this in more detail. Rohit, over to you.
Rohit Sharma
Thanks. Yeah, hi. So just to let you know, Curve Games is one of the leading, you know, indie publishing game game publishing studios in uk. Obviously they get revenue globally. One is that historically they have had a great success with a lot of successful IPs that they have built like for the King and Human Fall Flat, which still continue to do well. The team’s core strength is that they have extremely strong relationship in the PC and console space. They have extremely strong relationships with all the large platforms like Sony, like Microsoft, Steam and Nintendo. And on the development side, they are one of the most coveted publishers from studios to publish their games.
We have a very strong pipeline. In fact, we have just greenlit two very, very strong IPs that will start developing next quarter and will give us growth as we go on. But to answer your question, There are existing IPs and long tail IPs that are with Curve, like Human Fall Flat, Dungeons of Hittenburg for the King. And we have life on Switch 2 which will continue to give us growth. Plus we have also, as I said, invested in two or three very strong IPs which will give us growth in the future. So that’s kind of the strategy and the growth trajectory for Curve.
Aditi Parmar
Thank you, sir. That answers my question. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to the participant. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their Touchstone telephone. The next question is from the line of Sachin Dixit from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Sachin Dixit
Hi, this is Sachin from jm. I have two questions. The first one is on our dependence on platforms. Now I don’t know how you think of it. Right. Obviously because that dependence has impacted our business in the past as well. Right. When Apple changed some rationale and now Google. So how do you think of that dependence? How do you hedge against it or how do you basically mitigate the risk related to these platform related risks?
Nitish Mittersain
Sure. So Sachin, let me take that answer. I think one thing obviously is that there is, you know, some level of dependence on these very large platforms like Apple and Google. And you know, we can’t really run away from that. That said, you know, there are a lot of changes happening in the ecosystem which is reducing dependence. One from an Azara perspective, you know, our business model, which includes in app purchases as well as advertising revenues, sponsorship revenues, to a certain extent, you know, hedges the risks of these platforms. In addition to that, for example, you know, web flows are being enabled now on a lot of these platforms where you can build customers directly.
As you would be reading, there are a lot of, you know, global companies contesting some of the policies of these platforms which will open up, you know, the platforms to a certain extent. So I think there’s a natural tendency for the platforms to open up over the next two, three years. And we also are very actively working on, for example webflow enabling, enabling web flows on products like Fuel Box. They already have a pilot running. Lastly, I think the Curve games business that we have acquired diversifies us to different set of platforms. We, you know, seeing a lot of business coming in now on the PC and console side from Steam, Nintendo.
So I think there’s also certain diversification of platform beyond Apple and Google through the Curve acquisition.
Sachin Dixit
So I think basically getting more into these spaces helps us there.
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, sure.
Sachin Dixit
So my second question is on Poker Bazi. Right. So I know obviously this quarter’s losses could be on account of the higher icon spends. Yeah. But still what is your visibility on the business? Right. Casting that regulatory environment remains. I’d be uncertain and basically if I, if I do a math of like look at your shareholding in, in Cocobazi. Yeah. Your, your losses are almost like 35, 36 crore from that business and our EBITDA overall for the quarter is 47 crore. In that sense it makes us slightly sort of open to all the challenges that might come on that piece. How do you think of it? What is your visibility and profitability?
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, Sachin, I’ll give you my perspective and then also pull in Puneet, who’s the founder of Poker Gaze, to talk a bit about how he sees it from his perspective. I think we are very excited about the Poker Gazi business. They continue to dominate and increase their market share and as you know, with a lot of these skill based real money gaming platforms, liquidity on the platform is a very large moat. And I believe Poker Bazi is kind of, you know, got that significant advantage and that’s what you’re seeing even at scale, year on year revenue growth being significant.
The EBITDA loss you Refer to in Q1 is obviously on account of a large brand campaign on IPL and most of that has been front loaded in the year. So Q1 is where you’ll really see that large impact. You won’t see much of that, you know, in the coming quarters. So I think overall very exciting. All the metrics of the product continue to go north and we believe this is a, you know, potentially a large cash flow business for us in the years to come. Puneet, you can add to that in a little bit more detail maybe how you guys are thinking.
Puneet Singh
Yeah. Thank you. Hi. So like Nitish explained that the spends during the quarter one were already planned and the aggressive branding campaign in quarter one has achieved its objective of driving the top of the Funnel growth and which has also resulted in the record platform platform engagement. DAUs and other MAUs have been on the all time high in quarter two. Our focus is mostly on leveraging this momentum to unlock the full, you know, monetization potential for the new and the reactivated users and to optimize our cohort system as well. So we really believe that with the things lined up in the second quarter, the circuit, online qualifiers, the anniversary promotions, we are very well positioned to deliver one of our strongest quarters in quarter two.
So as to your spends on quarter one, that is actually as per the plans because IPL as well as Shaft Tank were both front loaded.
Sachin Dixit
Quickly If you can share the impact of These sort of one time ish spends in Q1 in IPM and Shark Tank
Puneet Singh
Because of these spends. What we have seen during the quarter one is that we have not only increased the I would say the session depth of all the users but you know, the R2s have also increased and what we have also seen during this tech.
Sachin Dixit
Sorry, sorry, I. I meant the amount of spend that that is there which might not sustain in the coming quarters. That’s what I was trying to understand.
Puneet Singh
The IPL branding spends and the Shark Tank spends have been completely booked in the, in the previous quarter itself so they would not be coming in.
The ITIL spends were somewhere around 85 crores and the shark shark tank spends were around 25 crores on top of that.
Sachin Dixit
Understood. Sure. Thanks. Thanks so much and thanks Nitish.
Nitish Mittersain
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Bajaj from Choice Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Kunal Bajaj
Yeah. Hello. Good morning all. Thanks for taking my question. So firstly I wanted to understand strategy on SMASH going forward as to what we are thinking on expanding in this front. Secondly on the Kidopia side so we have seen that there has been a rest in subscribers churn. So do we see any growth coming in this financial year? Yeah, that is two questions.
Nitish Mittersain
Kunal. Hi. So I think in the whole offline entertainment and gaming category of ours we have two businesses. One is Funky Monkeys and the second is Smash. Funky Monkeys is already well on its growth path. It is adding new centers now every month and we believe it’s a highly scalable business. It’s a profitable business with quick break even on the capex that we do. So we are very excited about it opportunity and you will see continued growth in that in the coming quarters. Now coming to smash, as you know we’ve acquired it through nclt. It’s been about you know two Months or less.
And we have, I think two pronged strategies there. One is to ensure that the existing business is stabilized, revitalized over the next few months. And we’re operating 11 centers. And our whole idea is to ensure that these 11 centers get revitalized. I think the parallel process we are working on is to reimagined Smash 2.0. What formats will it have? What are the new experiences it will bring? How will we integrate Synergies with the rest of the Nazara ecosystem? So I think these are the two approaches we are having. I think in another six months or so we should be able to, you know, come out with a smash 2.0 PoC.
Once that is established successfully, we will, you know, look at expanding this aggressively. So I think the next two quarters is going to be most of this work rather than very active expansion of centers at this point of time. I think FY27 is when you should expect rapid expansion of centers.
Kunal Bajaj
Okay, thanks.
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah. Coming to your question on Kidopia, I think we’ve seen, you know, good performance this quarter. Generally the subscriber decline has been stemmed and you would have seen in the presentation that we’ve seen positive KPIs across the board. Whether it’s churn, whether it’s CPT, the cost per acquisition that we are getting, etc. So I think we continue to feel quite bullish about the growth opportunities. I do understand it’s taken a long time coming. You know, we’ve been working on this for a few quarters or more. But I do think that we are getting very close to come back to growth.
I think another quarter or two and we should be able to see growth again.
Kunal Bajaj
Sure. Thanks. Also a follow up question on that. So as a broad corporate level, we had a target of around 300cr EBITDA margins level. So EBITDA level. Sorry. So how is our progress on that?
Nitish Mittersain
I think we’re making great progress. Our guidance has been to achieve the 300 crore EBITDA in FY27 and I believe very much on track to achieve that or surpass that.
Kunal Bajaj
Sure. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhishek Banerjee from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Abhishek Banerjee
Hey. Hi. Just a couple of questions from my side. First off to Akshat. So the thought process are in Northern going ahead. Right. So. So you have, you know, often explained to us how the older IPs kind of make decent margins but as you invest in newer IPs, the overall, you know, losses can come up. But you know, given you have been doing this for some time now and some of the older IPs are more than five years old. So what is the timeline that one should kind of built in for some profit delivery in Nordvind?
Akshat Rathee
So the way to think about all our IPs is again think of it like a portfolio approach. I’ll give a empirical example so you can go ahead and do it. So at any given time, since we do not know what the new game will be, what the new culture will be, what the new song will be, what the new vent will be, what the new influencer will be, we have to go ahead and have our ear to the ground. So think of it as Indian investment. We need to go ahead and have anywhere between 10 to 20 micro IPS in incubation at any given time every year.
These don’t cost too much. They cost anywhere between 50,000 rupees to maybe a month, 5, 7, 8 lakh rupees each. To go ahead and keep on running experiment. It allows us to model very quickly to this is our incubation and that we keep on running experiments, identify something that is worth investing in. Either because of critical mass coming in, high engagement coming, high traction coming in, we defer in that, that potential. We don’t still call it an IP and we run a first year experiment on it. A first year experiment is anywhere between about 10 lakhs to about 50 lakhs.
operator
So sorry to interrupt but Mr. Abhishek, I request you to please be on mute while the management is answering your question. So please go ahead.
Akshat Rathee
So we tried this experiment for around 10 lakhs to about 13, 14 lakhs and look at whether it’s successful or not. Again, in the first stage we have about a 70 to 80% failure. In the second stage we have about a 30 to 50% failure because it doesn’t work, it doesn’t have enough depth, it doesn’t have any traction. Chip in point, which is there is a success for us. We invested in chess three to four years ago. Playground is another one that has done well. But behind every success there are umpteen experiments that don’t come to fruition.
Typically after the first year is where we go ahead and get behind traction. So we then Invest into the second season. This would typically be between 50 lakh rupees to about a 2 crore rupees investment behind it. And this is the time where we actually go ahead and make it, try to go ahead and make real money out of it. We Go to sponsors, we go to media rights, we go to data rights, we go to ND and different partnerships behind it. And again maybe 30 to 50% failure rate here. Once this is established it is now an IT then typically this scales very very quickly.
This is now growth stage. You would normally not have failures in growth stage. We are looking at acceleration. How much acceleration is always the question. We typically after the first two years look at the payback between two more years to go ahead and have a full payback. And then a long tail that keeps on going and giving value. For example all that matters 15 years, next 7, 14 years, PGNs 5th year. You can look at all our global IPs takeover and try to be multi decade long IPs. That allows us not to be dependent on either platforms, influencers, talent, IP games, etc.
And that’s the portfolio approach that we want to go ahead and do. If it all works, we get extra astronomical returns. But as we are building out of emerging markets and we are not building out of developed worlds, the failure rate is substantially higher. So the beta always is higher. But as we move to a more from a developing to a developed economy in May, actually most core markets.
Abhishek Banerjee
Understood in terms of, you know, the what, what would be kind of the margins that your mature business is now making if you could give some clarity on that.
Akshat Rathee
So mature the IP is a good, better way to go ahead and do it. Mature IPS typically would have anywhere 60 to 60 to 75% margins while net business would normally have a 2025 market.
Abhishek Banerjee
Got it, got it. And, and one more question to, to, to for poker Bazi basically. So you were actually speaking on, you know, how your advertisements have helped in improving, you know, your engagement, customer engagement and the, the session depth. So if you could you know, talk a little bit on you know, how advertisement can kind of drives that. Because uh, you know, if you were to ask me, I can understand how advertising can drive customer acquisition, but how it can drive higher ARPUs etc. Would be great to understand.
Puneet Singh
Yeah, sure. So on that what we meant was that because of the advertisements we get along driving the top of the funnel growth. And once we do that, we have enough features within our system which help us drive those, you know, I would say session depth retentions and R tools. And also the new product innovation which we have done in the previous quarter which includes a lot of these features on, on, you know, user set, user learnings. We have added a poker TV app with tailor content Poker buddy school for structured learning to advanced Tools and so that, you know, all.
And poker shots. One more tool has also been added in the last quarter which is a tool for game analysis. So all these three tools together with having a, you know, a big top of the funnel, you know, funnel in terms of getting users eventually help us achieving these things.
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, I would, I would just add to that that, you know, when you have a large brand campaign happening, it also increases the brand credibility in the eyes of the consumer and therefore has a direct impact on usage and uplift in Arpu because the players are then coming back and playing more because of brand trust.
Abhishek Banerjee
Okay, got it. Thanks.
Nitish Mittersain
Thanks.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. The next question is from the line of Dinesh Joshi from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Jinesh Joshi
Yeah, sir, my question is with respect to the fundraiser Northwind, can you tell us how much is Norwind planning to raise? And secondly, given the fact that Nazara will not participate in this fundraise, what will be our revised stake in the company?
Nitish Mittersain
Sorry, what’s your second question is what will be our stake in the company?
Jinesh Joshi
Right in Nordwin, what will be our revised stake post the fundraiser?
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, so I think there’s going to be a bridge round the first and then a larger race. So the exact amounts are still to be finalized. So I won’t be able to give you a specific, you know, equity position, but it will be in the range of 46, 47% from what I understand at this point of time. Obviously once this is completed, the necessary disclosures will be made in terms of exact numbers, etc.
Jinesh Joshi
Understood. And sir, secondly, on Poker Bazi, I think we mentioned that the IPL spends were about 85 crores and what we spent on Shark tank was approximately 25. So in all we have spent about 110 crores. And if I look at our FY25 EBITDA for poker bazi, it was negative at approximately 58 crores. So just wanted to know, given the kind of trends we have made in one Q. I know, I know these are front loaded trends so to say, but given the quantum, I mean, should we expect profitability in FY26 at the operating level? And if not, I mean, when do you expect this business to kind of make profits at the operating level given how the taxation situation is?
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, Look, I think FY26, we do not expect to, you know, deliver profitability for poker Gazi, FY27 we should, but it depends on, you know, our market positioning at that point of time and what’s the right thing to do for the business? What is important to understand is that the marketing spend that we are doing today or the branding spends that we are doing today is very much, you know, driven by our desire to really dominate the market. And it is something that is in our control to, you know, dial up or dial down as you would like to.
The core business in itself is very profitable. And if you were to dial down the marketing spends today, you would see a large amount of profitability be thrown up by the core business. So I think it’s just our aggressive positioning to, you know, continue to dominate the market at this point of time. We believe that is the right strategy for this business.
Jinesh Joshi
Understood. And so one last question on Huge Box. Given the fact that we released a big brother in May 25th, and I believe we have quite a few new IPs lined up over the course of the year, but, but if I, if I look at 1Q, given the fact that there was a big launch expected, our user acquisition spend had risen a bit and that is why our EBITDA margin was down to about 14.3%. Now, given the fact that new launches are lined up, how should we think about the margin trajectory? Because historically this number was quite high and because of higher spends it has got diluted a bit to about 49%.
So basically your thoughts on the profitability side?
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, sure. I think it’s important to understand that most of the user acquisition spends that you see in Q1 is driven by spends on the Love island game and not on the Big Brother game. The Big Brother game is really, while the game is launched right now, the team is looking at the, you know, initial KPIs which look very good and you know, iterating the game before we start scaling it up. So most of the UA spins have happened on Love island because the team was getting very attractive customer acquisition costs also because of the airing of the TV show at the same time.
And these spends will get dialed down in the coming quarters and you will see the profitability show up and the margins, you know, come up again. So I don’t think new game launches will hurt margins a lot. I think over a period of time they will keep adding scale to the business. Generally the gaming business as you see this quarter has delivered, you know, 24% odd margins and we will continue to drive all our gaming businesses towards a 30% margin goal. That’s our first milestone that we want to try and achieve. I’m not promising any specific timeline right now, but at least our internal thought processes took towards that goal.
Jinesh Joshi
Understood, sir. Understood. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul from Sapphire Capital. Please go ahead.
Rahil
Hi, sir. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, yeah.
Rahil
So there’s one question. If you can just, you know, highlight or summarize which of the divisions or the key businesses will be the, you know, main growth drivers for FY26, that’s on the top line. And if you could provide any guidance to go with it.
Nitish Mittersain
Yeah, sure. I think in terms of main growth drivers at this point of time, if you look at Q1, we have seen Animal Jam perform very well for us. We’ve seen Funky Monkeys get onto a growth path. Few spots we are very excited about and I think Curve should have a great year as well. The rest of the businesses, you know, we are continuously plugging and working on, you know, building out Kidopia is something we are, like I was saying earlier, hoping that, you know, should get back to growth quite soon. In terms of guidance, we don’t have any specific guidance for here at this point of time.
Okay, sure.
Rahil
Thank you. All the best.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their touchstone telephone. A reminder to the participants. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Nitish Mittersain
Thank you everyone for joining today’s call. Also, thank you for the leadership team in Nazara for spending the time answering all the questions patiently. Wish you all a very good day. Goodbye.
operator
Thank you on behalf of PL Capital. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.