A public listing, in the eyes of many founders, is a finish line. For Gurhan Kiziloz, it is just a part of a larger plan: a structural milestone earned through scale, not promised by ambition. Nexus International, the gaming and digital entertainment firm he has led since its inception, has confirmed plans for an initial public offering in March 2027, conditional on one clear internal metric: $5 billion in annual revenue. That bar, high by industry standards, is not symbolic. It reflects Kiziloz’s view that public markets reward not noise, but readiness.
The company’s current trajectory suggests the milestone is well within reach. Nexus recorded $546 million in revenue across the first half of 2025, followed by $301.9 million in Q3. With Spartans.com, its crypto-native casino platform, driving an outsized share of topline growth, full-year revenue is projected to cross $1 billion. These figures place Nexus among the fastest-scaling private operators in gaming globally, and have brought heightened attention to its next move.
While many companies in the space have sought the public spotlight early, often pre-profit, and sometimes pre-revenue, Nexus is opting for a more deliberate path. Talks are underway regarding the choice of stock exchange, with regulatory stability, investor alignment, and governance compatibility topping the list of selection criteria. But for now, no final decision has been announced. What is clear, however, is that the IPO is being treated not as a liquidity event or marketing exercise, but as a structural transition, one that must be underpinned by real operational scale.
Kiziloz has long maintained that Nexus will not raise external capital before going public. That in itself makes the story unusual. A self-funded operator reaching the billion-dollar revenue range, let alone preparing to list at five times that scale, is rare across any vertical, and almost unheard of in gaming. It speaks to the internal architecture that has defined Nexus since day one: lean organisational layers, decentralised brand teams, centralised compliance, and a measured expansion cadence that avoids the pitfalls of overreach.
The company’s brand portfolio illustrates that approach in practice. Spartans.com has been built from the ground up as a casino-first platform, focusing on premium slots, live dealer tables, and instant withdrawals, supported by both fiat and crypto payment infrastructure. Importantly, it operates within full regulatory frameworks, meeting licensing and responsible gaming standards in every jurisdiction it enters. Megaposta, Nexus’s sportsbook brand, follows a different rhythm but the same internal logic: local payment compatibility, regulatory alignment, and precise UX localisation tailored to its core Latin American user base.
Rather than stack products into a single platform, Kiziloz has maintained brand separation. Each entity under the Nexus umbrella retains a distinct voice and operational strategy, while benefiting from shared infrastructure and compliance. This has allowed the company to scale horizontally across product types and geographies, without diluting focus or inviting execution risk. And as public markets increasingly favour operators with real discipline over those simply riding trend cycles, Nexus’s positioning becomes more strategic than contrarian.
There is also the matter of leadership continuity. In a sector where founders often step aside or cede control prior to listing, Kiziloz is expected to remain in place beyond the IPO, carrying forward the founder-led discipline that has shaped Nexus’s trajectory to date. For investors, that may offer reassurance: a signal that this is not a pivot, but a continuation.
IPO by Design, Not Default
If Nexus International does reach the $5 billion revenue mark and list as planned in March 2027, it will do so having followed a markedly different script. There has been no fast-track funding, no early listing attempt, no brand built for optics rather than use. What Kiziloz has constructed is a model of scale earned through execution, a founder-led company positioning itself for public life not with promises, but with proof. And as the industry looks for sustainable growth over speculative sprints, Nexus may well enter the public markets on the terms most companies wish they could afford: readiness without compromise.
This article was written in cooperation with Nexus International