Adgully Bureau
| 7 hours ago
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Most startups dream of raising millions from investors. Axponent chose a different path.
Founded in Gurugram in 2020, byShipra Mishra, the company has spent the last six years building and scaling its operations as a bootstrapped venture, without raising external capital. Instead of chasing headlines about funding rounds and valuations, it focused on building products and helping mobile apps attract and retain users.
For most of its journey,Axponentworked quietly behind the scenes. The company wasn’t creating apps or games that consumers used directly. Instead, it was helping other businesses grow their audiences and improve their marketing.
Now, Axponent is stepping into the spotlight with its new project:Smash Grid, a competitive realtime multiplayer mobile game.
The fascinating fact is, Smash Grid isn’t the only game that Axponent launched! It has developed various mobile apps earlier that were successful.
The company forecasted a revenue run rate of around ₹80 crore in 2026-27.
Axponent’s Journey: From Helping Apps Grow to Building Its Own Products
To understand why Smash Grid is important, we need to understand what Axponent was doing before entering gaming.
Axponent has built partnerships with publishers across the world to help consumer brands acquire new users and re-engage inactive ones.
Over the years, the company has worked with brands such as BBVA, Mashreq, ByBit, Quara Finance, Tilt Shopping, and several others, giving it deep expertise in digital growth and user engagement.
That experience eventually led Axponent to expand into multiple businesses, each connected in some way to attracting, understanding, and growing online audiences.
According toAnant Mohan Sinha, the Head of Product & Strategy at Axponent, the company’s focus has always been on building products that solve real user and business problems rather than chasing trends.
One of them isGrowBolt, a mobile advertising platform that helps businesses promote their apps and products. It connects advertisers with publishers through high-converting, demographic-targeted campaigns optimized for app installs, engagement, and lifetime value. Its monetisation platform helps publishers earn more revenue through targeted offers and campaigns. Brands such as Boyle Sports, Olymptrade, OctaFX, Gemini, and Albert have been featured among its case studies.
Beyond GrowBolt, Axponent has builtThe Business Rule, which covers startup news and business trends,Snaptoro, a platform that helps shoppers save money through discounts, cashback, and promo codes, andNexGene Games, its gaming division.
This is where the company began experimenting with mobile games before eventually launching Smash Grid. Their first game wasGrumbl!
Looking at these businesses together, a clear pattern emerges. Whether it’s media, coupons, advertising, or gaming, all of them revolve around understanding how people discover, engage with, and spend time online.
That knowledge is what Axponent believes gives it an advantage.
Axponent’s First Game- “Grumbl”
Smash Grid wasn’t Axponent’s first attempt at gaming.
Before it cameGrumbl, a casual bounce game developed under the NexGene Games brand.
The game crossed 500K downloads, with the US and India accounting for most of its user base. More importantly, Grumbl gave Axponent valuable experience in game publishing, player engagement, and monetization, lessons that later helped shape the development of Smash Grid.
Why Smash Grid Matters?
For Axponent,Smash Gridis more than just a new game launch. It marks the company’s transition from building growth solutions for other businesses to expand its own consumer product division.
Developed under NexGene Games, Smash Grid combines competitive multiplayer gameplay with a strong focus on player engagement and progression. The game is aimed at players looking for a more competitive and immersive experience, with distinct characters, dynamic arenas, and social gameplay elements designed to keep matches exciting.
The launch also reflects how Axponent is applying years of experience in user acquisition, audience growth, and digital engagement to a product it owns directly.
Through businesses such as GrowBolt, Snaptoro, and its performance marketing operations, the company has spent years understanding how digital audiences behave and what keeps them coming back.
As a result, Smash Grid is not just another addition to Axponent’s portfolio. It is the clearest example yet of the company’s ambition to build consumer-facing products and establish a stronger presence in the gaming industry.
For years, Axponent helped other companies find users. Now, with Smash Grid, it is trying to win over those users itself. And for the quiet startup from Gurugram, that may be the biggest challenge—and opportunity—it has faced so far!
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marketing23-Jul-2026Smash GridAxponent
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