MUMBAI: The world’s largest investment corporation, China-headquartered Tencent is looking at investing in Dream11, India’s biggest fantasy sports platform, as per a report in the Economic Times.
As per the news report, if the deal goes through, Tencent will invest around Rs 6.57 billion ($100 million) in Dream11 for a pre-money valuation of $400-$450 million.
The business daily quotes three sources having knowledge of the transaction and claims that the Shenzhen-headquartered company, which is also the operator of the ubiquitous We-Chat messaging platform, has offered a term sheet for the reported transaction.
The other investors of Dream11 in previous rounds include Kalaari Capital, Multiples Alternate Asset Management and San Francisco-based investment firm Think Investments.
Tencent, which already is the largest video game company in the world, had recently evinced interest in expanding its presence in India by investing in gaming companies. According to reports, Tencent has held talks with two social gaming companies – Octro and MoonFrog Labs – for a potential acquisition. The investment company had indicated that it would prefer to build business partnerships first, before looking at complete acquisitions.
If the Dream11 deal indeed goes through, it would be the biggest investments in any real-money online gaming company till date. Fantasy sports has been growing exponentially of late with a Indian Federation of Sports Gaming (IFSG) and AC Nielsen’s report estimating that the total number of online fantasy sports users will cross the 100 million mark by 2020.
Dream11, which is the biggest fantasy sports operator in India, has a market share of over 90%. The company has been aggressively expanding its footprint and recently signed an agreement with Star India to become one of the sponsors of IPL 2018. Last month, the company had announced that it had roped in former Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni as its brand ambassador.
