Following the acquisition of an Indian PUBG Mobile roster in October 2019, global esport powerhouse, Fnatic has appointed Nimish Raut as its India lead. Raut will be based out of India and will work to open Fnatic’s training academy and its gaming house in the country.
“I’m very pleased to welcome Nimish to the family. I had the pleasure to meet with Nimish a few years back and following a lot of great conversations it’s exciting to have him join us to lead our expansion in India,where we aim to play an active role of growing the esports ecosystem together with all stakeholders. Welcome Nimish!”, said Patrik “Carn” Sättermon, Chief Gaming Officer and co-owner of Fnatic.
Raut is a former Riot Games employee and was recently in charge of the LoL Leagues across South East Asia. His prior work experience includes roles in sports marketing with brands like Star Sports and Red Bull.
Speaking to AFK Gaming about the announcement, Nimish Raut, India lead at Fnatic said, “I’m extremely excited to join the Fnatic family. While I was working with Riot in the past, I got a close understanding of what the Fnatic brand meant, how the team works and how much love fans have for the organization. We are passionate about the Indian market and feel that it can be grown just like traditional sports. In terms of our future plans, we have big plans and want to replicate some of our global initiatives here in India, starting with a full fledged facility which isn’t just a bootcamp. My role will be to try and execute these while also helping our players to become global superstars. We also want to bring in the required professionalism in the sport and the ecosystem while simultaneously partnering with brands to find ways for them to meaningfully invest into it. I’m hoping that this journey with Fnatic will be super fun and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Fnatic India was announced in October 2019 with the acquisition of an all Indian PUBG Mobile roster. The team recently won the PUBG Mobile All Stars (PMAS) event held in Hyderabad in December and competed at the Peacekeeper Elite Championship (PEC) 2019 in Xi’an, China. The team has become one of the most feared and followed teams in the Indian PUBG Mobile scene in recent times and with a big year of PUBGM action on the horizon, there will be a lot of eyes on them. Fnatic's plans in and for India are something that everyone has been interested in and it will be interesting to see how the organization is able execute them and what the reaction from India is.
