Gaming
£90m sale of nDreams provides exit for Mercia

nDreams – a leading UK virtual reality (VR) studio that specialises in developing and publishing VR games – has been acquired by Stockholm-based Aonic AB in a £90.3m ($110m) deal.
The transaction provides an exit for nDreams’ investor Mercia Asset Management, which held a 33.2% direct stake in the company. It achieved a total return of £30.2m, consisting of £26.4m in cash and a £3.8m stake in Aonic, and representing a 2.7x return on investment and a 18.4% IRR.
nDreams, which is headquartered in Farnborough, was founded by Patrick O’Luanaigh in 2006. The company has more than doubled the size of its team, from around 100 at the start of 2001 to 250, including 195 developers working across four studios on a range of high- potential projects. These include recent launches Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord, in collaboration with Sony Pictures Virtual Reality and Meta, and the Meta Quest chart topper Powerwash Simulator VR.
Aonic is diversified video gaming group with a strong position in the VR and augmented reality (AR) industry and made an initial $35m investment into nDreams in March 2022. This investment helped support nDreams’ acquisition of Near Light Limited, a Brighton-based VR and AR game development studio, organic investment into new game developments as well as its broader growth strategy.
Mercia was one of the first investors to anticipate the growth of VR. Its initial £0.3m investment in nDreams was made in March 2014, prior to Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR, which is regarded as a landmark deal in the industry. Mercia initially invested through its managed funds, later using capital from its own balance sheet.
Julian Viggars, CIO of Mercia Asset Management and nDreams’ board member, commented: “When we first invested in nDreams we had a high conviction in the potential of VR gaming, and this realisation is a strong validation of that thesis. We have proactively supported nDreams since 2014 and are pleased that we will continue to benefit from their continuing growth as part of Aonic, through our partial reinvestment. We look forward to nDreams continuing on its exciting VR and AR journey within a larger gaming group and congratulate Patrick O’Luanaigh and his nDreams team on all that they have achieved thus far
Dr Mark Payton, CEO of Mercia Asset Management PLC, said: “This trade sale represents another profitable outcome for Mercia, realising a significant return which is above our current holding value, predominantly in cash. This latest successful exit further adds to our strong debt free cash position, which now stands at circa £60m. We look forward to announcing Mercia’s Interim Results on 28 November 2023.”
Gaming
MGA Games continues to lead the Spanish market with new launch at Onecasino.es

The developer of localised slots for global operators, MGA Games, has entered into a new strategic partnership to integrate its premium productions into Oncasino .es. A deal that strengthens its lead in the Spanish online gaming market.
This collaboration allows both companies to further consolidate their position in the industry. It also offers Onecasino .es players a wide collection of successful slots such as Spanish Celebrities, Chiquito and Chiquito 2 Condemor al rescate, and the popular slots La Mina de Oro, Gnomos Mix, Pasapalabra, Popeye, 777 Caliente, La Taberna or El Habanero among many others.
Javier Lanfranchi, Head of Sales at MGA Games, commented on the partnership: “We are certain that One Casino players will love our offer. We have the right formula to build customer loyalty and increase their presence in Spain: the perfect combination of innovation, quality and service.
The alliance with One Casino has also borne fruit at international level with the launch of MGA Games slots on the operator’s Dutch platform. The Netherlands is a growing market, in which MGA Games has entered strongly, as announced by the company a few days ago.
“In Spain we have a 99% penetration and a 15% market share, and we are also positioning ourselves as a global supplier of reference” – recalled Lanfranchi.
Brazil
INSIDE THE POCKET (ITP) LAUNCHES HOTSPOT JOGOS FOR BRAZILIAN OPERATOR HOTSPOTBET

Inside The Pocket (ITP) the world’s only free-to-play and pay-to-play (F2P & P2P) aggregation platform, has partnered with rising-star operator HotSpotBet to boost acquisition and retention in Brazil around its growing client-base.
ITP has accordingly launched a breakthrough F2P offering for this key emerging market in the form of HotSpotJogos, a localised website supporting a series of engaging free-to-play (F2P) games which have already proven themselves to open flexible gateway through which to both acquire and retain customers in an international landscape of tightening regulatory ropes.
As operators look to new emerging markets, F2P solutions that track localised player proclivities are proving the reliable differentiator for operators who want to broaden their brand’s appeal and have discovered that obsolete bonusing techniques represent a race to the bottom.
This deal follows on the heels of a breakout performance for ITP at last year’s World Cup football, where it was tasked by leading local Brazilian operator, Pixbet, to create a bespoke slate of F2P games and a dedicated F2P website across the Qatar tournament. That new-account success informed a case study, premised on the acquisition and subsequent retention of a loyal audience, which proved pivotal in securing this HotSpotJogos assignment from HotSpotBet. Moreover, ITP has also teamed up with a major global affiliate to help optimise its Meta spend in Brazil, demonstrating a deep understanding and array of analytics tools for this key market.
ITP’s single-integration approach for one or multiple products delivers, in complementary fashion, customer engagement and retention across various products as sports betting regulation remains on the cusp of rolling out across Brazil’s legalised framework, with the Brazilian Ministry of Finance publishing ordinances for operators to apply for fast-track licensing earlier this month. ITP stands apart from any competitor in the F2P and P2P content market, in that through a one simple integration, it opens up an entire market of 30+ free-to-play and pay-to-play content providers.
HotSpotBet’s next-generation sportsbook and igaming platform runs off unique pricing models – allowing users to enjoy sophisticated and reactive in-play odds up to the last second of a game, with competitive pricing on all sports. This service arrives in good time for the ongoing international football league seasons, and a wider sporting schedule of 24/7 global activity. Its modern, modular technology also helps to overcome local regulatory challenges with a light physical deployment backed up by centralised control systems.
A HotSpotBet spokesperson said: “Collaborating with ITP on HotSpotJogos has been a fantastic journey so far. They share our values and vision and we look forward to putting our combined shoulders to the wheel to make HotSpotBet the best sportsbook in Brazil over the year ahead.
“We were initially taken with ITP’s success at last year’s World Cup and saw an immediate opportunity for us to roll out a more dedicated ongoing program around F2P for HotSpotBet over the coming months.
“The engaging gameplay and localized flexibility of our HotSpotJogos games has already helped generate clear spikes in acquisition and retention for, and provides us with a clear pathway in the white-hot Brazilian market, underscoring ITP’s innovative portfolio of native and third-party products as we go along.
“Latin America, while fragmented, is comprised of countries that are overwhelmingly football-focussed, with scope to cross-sell into other sports as they become popular, or reach their optimum seasons peaks, like basketball or baseball. Working with ITP’s varied catalogue, we can spin up new games across other emerging LatAm markets as we look to light up further territories with HotSpotBet’s versatile sportsbook.
Hussain Naqi, Founder and CEO of Inside The Pocket, said: “We saw that at last year’s football World Cup, the most important and most watched football competition in the world – especially amongst Brazil’s football-mad fanbase – that the largest home-grown operator executed far better than some of the global behemoths eyeing the Brazilian space simply because they knew their end users so intimately.
“Other local sportsbooks and media companies across the regulating Brazilian marketplace have also elevated their acquisition and retention targets via F2P, so it’s exciting to have already showcased the dexterous performance of ITP in this space, and to now be leading the LatAm charge on Brazil with HotSpotBet.
“Thanks to our software and platform partners, we were able to construct and curate this customized website, HotSpotJogos, from scratch. They couldn’t have been more collaborative and responsive. And based on encouraging performances in both acquisition and retention metrics, it seems HotSpotBet’s new customers are loving these local touches, too.
“Having developed some vital expertise in the F2P domain in Brazil by working hand-in-hand with proven operators and a major industry affiliate, ITP’s data mastery and marketing success stories will only continue for our partners across emerging territories like Brazil. We are ideally placed to leverage such opportunities because we can diversify content, leverage consumer data and segment it for our clients as the Brazilian coalesces into more definitive shape over the coming months. Our complementary partners at marketing analytics and geolocation are also affording ITP unique consumer insights that will allow us to hyper-localise audience communication around a variety of other mass-media sporting events on the horizon in 2024.”
Compliance Updates
ELA Games obtains the MGA Recognition Notice

ELA Games is delighted to announce that it has been authorized by the Malta Gaming Authority. Marking the beginning of our expansion into select global markets in collaboration with MGA.
ELA Games continues its strategic expansion in Europe and it is another major step in its ability to access distribution and commercial partnerships with companies based in the iGaming hub of Malta.
Mike Cini, Business Owner at ELA Games, commented: “We’re delighted to have obtained our MGA Recognition Notice as it is another major milestone in our regulatory expansion. Malta is the leading iGaming hub in Europe and being authorized there will enable us to work even more closely with our operators and bring player engagement to the next level for our partners.”
ELA Games focuses on producing high quality products that are stacked with gamification features, quality design and animation. Recent releases include Vikings Wild Cash and Lucky Dwarfs. They have already received amazing feedback from operators and players and the studio looks forward to signing more partnerships and launching more games in the coming months.
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