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Hello reader,
One of my favorite memories from my final year of university is the charity boxing matches some friends held.
Calling them amateur productions would be putting it mildly. They were simply held in a large living room, with the fighters drawn from the industrial design course, so they weren’t exactly Rocky Balboa types.
Despite the amateur setup, these nights were electric, with the living room packed with students cheering on their friends as they threw wild punches. More importantly, these nights typically raised a decent amount of cash for whatever charity had been chosen.
So while I’ve never been into combat sports, those nights on Radmoor Road in Loughborough helped me understand the appeal.
One Championship is a great deal more professional than anything I attended back in uni, as its swelling revenue figures will attest to. However, as today’s featured piece dives into, the firm’s parent company is still some way off from recording a profit.
Today we look at:
- Grappling with One Championship’s 2022 financials
- Why wealthtech startups are drawing investor’s eyes in India
- Other newsy highlights such as Indian trucking aggregator BlackBuck filing for an IPO and SoftBank-backed fintech firm PayPay Securities aiming to double its number of brokerage accounts.
Premium summary
The fight for profit
Image credit: Timmy Loen
One Championship operator Group One Holdings has yet to turn a profit since it was founded in 2011. But the firm did narrow its losses in 2022, and it’s eyeing positive cash flow by the end of this year.
The mixed martial arts promoter’s 2022 revenue hit US$84.5 million, up from US$67.7 million the year before.
- Losses cut: Group One Holdings recorded a loss of US$110 million in 2021, a figure it cut to US$60.8 million in 2022. However, US$23 million of its reduction in losses was attributed to a “contract breakage fee,” which is typically paid by an entity that breaks an agreement with its potential partner.
- Fight on: Broadcasting was the biggest contributor to Group One’s revenue, which jumped 25% in 2022 compared to the year before. Co-founder and group president Teh Hua Fung told Tech in Asia that the growth of the firm’s martial arts product and increasing global interest in combat sports helped the company secure more media deals.
- Game on: The company has made inroads into the world of esports, launching One Esports in 2019 to organize and broadcast events and tournaments in Asia. This vertical was profitable for the firm in 2022, raking in US$3.1 million in total income, which Teh largely attributed to an increase in sponsorship revenue.
Investors bet on wealth in India
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