Glance acquires gaming firm Gambit; forays into NFT-based live gaming

The acquisition of Gambit brings together Glance's scale and lock screen centric innovation with Gambit's expertise and understanding of the gaming ecosystem

Lockscreen platform Glance, owned by Softbank-backed InMobi, announced that it has acquired Indian gaming company Gambit Sports. This is expected to accelerate Glance’s ambition of building the biggest platform for NFT-based live gaming experiences for Gen-Z, across markets. The financial details of the deals were not disclosed.  

The acquisition brings together Glance’s scale and lock screen centric innovation with Gambit’s expertise and understanding of the gaming ecosystem. Glance already has presence in the gaming segment through Glance Games - Glance’s lock screen gaming platform - has over 45 million monthly active users across Asia. Close to 70 per cent of its users are in the age group of 18 to 34, while over 40% of its gamers are female.  

“Gaming is the most exciting content category across the world today and Gen-Z spends more time on gaming than on any other activity online," said Piyush Shah, co-founder of InMobi Group and president and COO, Glance. "Giving users live, connected, interactive gaming experiences on the lock screen is key to Glance’s vision of building the world’s largest live internet platform. We also aim to launch creator-led NFTs for live gaming which will generate unique 'play-to-earn' and 'play-to-own' possibilities for the entire gaming ecosystem,” he added.

Recently, Glance had raised $200 million from Jio Platforms. The deal would have Glance pre-installed into JioPhone Next smartphones. This integration is expected to further boost the reach of Glance Games.

Gambit comes with a team that has deep experience in building platforms, it was co-founded in 2015 by Yashashvi Takallapalli, Gaurav Konar, Ranaveer Sankieneni and Deepak Venkatramani, Gambit owns and operates Nostragamus (Nostra Pro). This is a highly popular gaming platform with fantasy sports, poker, rummy, quiz and hyper-casual games. Over 100 million games have been played on the Nostragamus platform, and it has close to 10 million registered users.   

Glance will leverage Gambit’s expertise to launch highly engaging live gaming experiences including tournaments, game shows, game streaming and multi-player games on lock screen. In the coming quarters, Glance also plans to launch NFTs in live gaming. This will potentially enable creators, streamers and developers to monetize through assets and NFT-based game creation, while giving gamers unique experiences that they love.  

Yashashvi Takallapalli, Co-founder and CEO, Gambit said, “We have already started seeing great traction for live gaming on Glance. For instance, over 10 million users watch live game streams on Glance every week now. With Glance and Gambit’s combined strengths and our belief that there is a game for every person, we envision doubling the number of monthly active gamers on Glance Games in the next year.”