Mario Ho (left), cofounder and co-CEO of NIP Group, at the Asian Games at China Hangzhou Esports Centre on September 24, 2023.
VCG via Getty ImagesNIP Group, an esports company cofounded by Mario Ho, a son of the late legendary Macau casino magnate Stanley Ho, has filed for an initial public offering on the Nasdaq exchange.
The company—based in Sweden, the birthplace of popular games like Minecraft and Candy Crush—did not disclose details of its IPO in its filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. NIP Group didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Incorporated in 2021, NIP Group is an esports organization with a team of 125 pro gamers from China, Europe and Brazil, according to its prospectus. NIP Group operates two esports teams: EStar Gaming in China and Sweden’s Ninjas in Pyjamas, which competes in popular titles such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Honor of Kings and League of Legends. EStar Gaming has won $10.9 million in prize money from 60 tournaments and Ninjas in Pyjamas has scored $8.2 million across 57 competitions as of 2023, according to NIP Group’s prospectus.
NIP Group has attracted investors including the likes of Felix Granander, son of late Swedish media and telecom tycoon Jan Stenbeck; the Wuhan municipal government, American billionaire Jeff Yass’ Susquehanna International Group, Forbes Midas Lister Anna Fang’s ZhenFund and Hong Kong pop singer Jackson Wang, among others.
NIP Group saw its net loss widen to $13.3 million in 2023 from $6.2 million a year earlier. The company recorded a 27% growth in revenue to $83.7 million during the same period. It generates sales from talent management, esports team operation (which includes tournament participation rewards and sponsorships), as well as from event production.
NIP Group said it plans to expand into new markets such as Southeast Asia, North America, the Middle East, Japan and Korea. The company added that it would further expand its businesses in areas including esports education, digital collectibles and licensing of intellectual properties. “We want to influence the mainstream to continue to embrace this rapidly growing industry and recognize the potential it holds for the future and for youth,” wrote Ho and Hicham Chahine, the cofounders and co-CEOs of NIP Group, in a letter in the prospectus.
The global market for esports reached a revenue of $1.3 billion in 2022, with Asia and the Middle East and North Africa contributing more than 56% of the figure, according to the most recent report by research firm Niko Partners. The popularity of video game competitions is growing, with the number of viewers expected to increase from 532 million in 2022 to more than 640 million in 2025, a Boston Consulting Group research in September last year showed.
Mario Ho, a finance graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ventured into the esports space in 2018, when he founded Victory 5, one of the predecessors of NIP Group, in Shenzhen at the age of 23. A son of Stanley Ho, the patriarch behind the largest gaming empire in Asia who passed away in 2020 at age 98, Mario also serves as the chairperson of the Macau Esports Federation.
An earlier version of this story stated that NIP Group saw its net loss widen to $8 million in 2023 from $6.1 million a year earlier, instead of net loss widening to $13.3 million in 2023 from $6.2 million a year earlier.
