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V. Rishi Kumar

Mr Nitish Mittersain

Hyderabad , Feb. 20

NAZARA Technologies, mobile content provider for the wireless entertainment world, has sewn up expansion plans that would see the company opening centres in the US and UK shortly and targeting to buy more brands.

The company has bagged an exclusive global deal with Archie's Entertainment to reach out its comic strips on mobile phones. With this, one can access Archie's characters Betty, Veronica, Jughead and Reggie.

Speaking to Business Line, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nazara, Mr Nitish Mittersain, said that the company was eyeing the global mobile service providers with its innovative content and this exclusive deal with Archies is one major step in that direction.

"The company was self-funded and is closely held. But later we received funding from a select group of professionals. We are now in the process of raising more funds, aimed at supporting our expansion plans and to have a US and UK presence close to a big market out there," Mr Mittersain said.

Nazara has licensed out both Indian and global brands such as Sachin Tendulkar, Archie's Comics, Colin Jackson and Diamond Comics and is in the process of creating content based on these brands. It has developed a content delivery platform, which facilitates the automatic management of content and enables it for download by mobile subscribers around the world.

"Nazara has become a preferred third party content and development services provider for international mobile gaming majors. To strengthen this preferred outsourcing partner, we are in the process of ramping up the team by infusing additional funds," he said.

Nazara has lined up more than 400 games and over 1000 wallpapers, ringtones, logos for release in India.

"The gaming market is still at a nascent stage in India. However, operators such as Orange and Airtel are promoting download services. For mobile content like games, polyphonic ringtones, the subscriber needs to activate the GPRS feature. Due to efforts by telcos and marketing campaigns, we expect the market to double every 18 months," he said.

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