Gurhan Kiziloz has never raised a cent from investors. Not because he couldn’t, but because he chose not to. His company, Nexus International, owner of the $400M gaming platform Megaposta, now oversees a growing global operation that includes the Spartans.com casino brand, has scaled without venture capital, debt, or board oversight. For Kiziloz, that decision was foundational.
“I’m too proud to borrow,” he said in a recent interview. “If I can build it myself, I will.” That quote isn’t about defiance; it’s about control. For Kiziloz, control over the product, the pace, and the priorities matters more than shared upside.
This approach has defined the way Nexus operates. Without external capital, decisions are made quickly. There are no board approvals to wait for. No investor calls to prepare for. If something makes sense, it gets built. If it doesn’t, it gets dropped. Lean. Direct. Immediate. That clarity is a double-edged sword: efficient, but isolating. If things go wrong, there’s no one else to absorb the blame or share the cost.
In the first half of 2025, Nexus posted $546 million in revenue – more than double the same period last year – driven in part by its aggressive global expansion and platform strategy. The company is pacing toward $1.1 billion in annual revenue, a figure that, in typical venture circles, would usually come with a long list of backers, advisors, and second-guessers. Not here.
The self-funded path isn’t necessarily romantic. It comes with real tradeoffs. Speed is often constrained by available capital. Risk isn’t diversified. And hiring can lag when funds are limited. But Kiziloz sees these constraints as useful. “Most founders ask for money too early,” he said. “They put themselves on the back foot before they have anything people want to join. Build first. Then decide if you even want them.”
This build-first philosophy is reflected in how Nexus products go to market. Instead of long cycles of planning and validation, the internal culture favors execution. Ideas move quickly from pitch to deployment. That autonomy comes at a price, the burden of self-editing, the lack of outside input, and the pressure to get it right the first time. Kiziloz acknowledges the downside: “I get it wrong all the time. But when I get it right, it wipes out everything else.”
In this model, conviction replaces consensus. There are no committees. No diluted leadership. That might not work for every founder or every team. But for Nexus, it has produced measurable results. A 110% year-on-year revenue increase. A growing international user base. And a leadership structure that’s clear, fast, and unfiltered.
Kiziloz isn’t on a mission to make this model a rule. He’s not advocating for others to abandon external funding. But his experience suggests that the decision to self-fund isn’t about scarcity, it’s about preference. It’s about what kind of company you want to build, and what kind of pressure you’re willing to carry.
That pressure doesn’t seem to bother him. When asked what happens if the company fails, he shrugged. “Then I start again. It’s that simple.”
Terrifying to some. The only way to work for others.
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