Nexus International has entered the global top 100 gaming operators by revenue for the first time, following a $546 million performance in the first half of 2025. The milestone is unusual in an industry where most peers have relied on venture capital, private equity, or public market listings to achieve comparable scale.
The privately held group, founded and led by CEO Gurhan Kiziloz, operates across more than 40 markets and expects to close the year with between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion in revenue, in line with its $1.54 billion annual target. The achievement follows a 110% year-on-year increase from H1 2024 and places Nexus alongside established mid-tier operators such as Betsson AB and Rank Group in revenue terms.
Unlike many of its competitors, Nexus has grown without external capital injections. The company has funded its expansion entirely from operating cash flows, reinvesting earnings into product development, regulatory licensing, and market entry. In an industry where large-scale growth often coincides with significant shareholder dilution or leveraged buyouts, Nexus’s approach has kept strategic control entirely in-house.
Kiziloz notes that the absence of external investors has enabled the company to move decisively in its market strategies. “We have built the business step by step, funding our growth from what we earn. This allows us to stay focused on the markets and products we believe in, without having to manage competing investment agendas,” he said.
H1 results were driven by performance across Nexus’s three core platforms. Spartans.com, the group’s crypto-enabled gaming brand, continued to gain traction in multi-currency markets, expanding its offering to over 5,900 games from 43 content providers. Lanistar, which has transitioned from fintech into gaming, recorded gains in European and Latin American markets. Megaposta, Nexus’s Brazilian operation, delivered sustained user retention and transaction growth, benefiting from early licensing under Brazil’s new iGaming regulations.
Brazil has emerged as Nexus’s largest single market by revenue, prompting the opening of a new regional headquarters in São Paulo. The hub is expected to support expansion across Latin America, a region forecast to deliver some of the highest regulated iGaming growth rates globally over the next three years.
The global gaming sector’s top 100 revenue list is dominated by companies backed by large investment funds or listed on public exchanges, many with valuations in the billions and multi-decade operating histories. Nexus’s entry into this cohort as a privately funded business is a rarity, reflecting both the scale of its operational execution and the pace of its market expansion.
By comparison, most mid-tier operators reaching similar revenue levels have either raised significant equity capital to finance acquisitions or pursued mergers to build scale. Nexus has opted for organic growth, leveraging product innovation and early regulatory positioning rather than financial engineering.
The company’s self-funded growth model has required strict capital allocation discipline. Expansion into new markets is timed to coincide with favourable regulatory openings, reducing licensing lead times and allowing for faster market capture. Platform development has focused on features with proven revenue impact, such as multi-currency support, expanded payment rails, and localisation for high-growth jurisdictions.
While this approach limits the scale of near-term investment compared to funded peers, it also shields the business from the cost of servicing external capital and the governance demands of public listing.
Nexus will continue to target regulated market entries and product diversification in the second half of the year. Planned initiatives include further platform enhancements on Spartans.com, additional content partnerships for Lanistar, and deepened localisation for Megaposta in Brazil.
No changes have been announced to its capital structure. Management maintains that private ownership remains central to the company’s ability to execute at speed and adapt to shifting market conditions.
“Our trajectory shows that there is still room in this industry to reach global scale without external funding,” Kiziloz said. “The key is pairing operational efficiency with a clear understanding of where the growth opportunities are.”
With its entry into the global top 100, Nexus has demonstrated that disciplined, self-funded growth can compete with, and in some markets outperform, capital-backed rivals. The company’s next challenge will be sustaining this pace while navigating the increasingly competitive and regulated global gaming landscape.
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