Dream11 eyes new game in stock broking

MUMBAI: Dream11 Group, the onetime king of fantasy gaming, has applied to enter India’s stock broking business, after the recent ban on online money games crippled its core business.

- Ram Sahgal, Sneha Shah & Neha Joshi

The Tencent, TPG and Tiger Global-backed unicorn aims to tap its vast base of 260 million users for the venture, two people aware of the matter said, as. it eyes a slice of India’s fastgrowing broking industry with significant room to grow. The September ban on online money games ended Dream's core business of paid contests, prompting it to adopt a free-toplay, ad-supported model.

“The company is looking to tap into the captive user base it had before the real money online gaming ban surfaced almost two months ago. Online equity broking is one such play which can be seen asa natural adjacency,” one of the two people cited above said on the condition of anonymity.

The move highlights the growing cult of stock market investing in India, where only one in 12 is a registered investor on India’s largest bourse NSE, as per exchange and brokerage data.