Mumbai: MetaNinza, a gaming and esports engagement platform, has appointed Anand Mishra as its Co-Founder and Chief of Staff, marking a key leadership move as the company scales its rewards-first gaming ecosystem across India and South East Asia.
Mishra is a serial entrepreneur with over seven years of experience across consumer technology, blockchain, and gaming ecosystems. Prior to joining MetaNinza, he was the Founder and CEO of Glazer Labs, where he led Glazer Games and THRYL, a rewards-centric gamer engagement platform.
In his new role, Mishra will work closely with MetaNinza’s leadership and core team to drive execution across esports ecosystems, partnerships, product development, and internal operations. His focus areas include user acquisition, growth and retention, scaling a creator-focused ecosystem through tournaments and programmes, strengthening governance and rewards distribution mechanisms, and aligning product, technology, marketing, and operations for growth-focused execution.
During his tenure at Glazer, Mishra built and scaled platforms across gaming growth, esports events, brand partnerships, and creator communities. Under his leadership, Glazer Games delivered over 400 million impressions for more than 50 brands, drove 10 million-plus user acquisitions and over 200 million views through campaigns and activations, executed hundreds of creator and brand partnerships, and launched new esports IPs. He also led the launch of THRYL, which acquired nearly half a million users within around two months of launch.
Earlier, Mishra founded HECOD Blockchain Inc. in 2019, a Canada-based blockchain enterprise, which scaled to serve over 400 B2B clients globally and more than eight million active users, while achieving an ARR of $4.2 million. Mishra continues to remain a majority shareholder in HECOD. His blockchain expertise is expected to support the development of secure, transparent, and anti-abuse reward infrastructure at MetaNinza.
On joining MetaNinza, Anand Mishra said, “MetaNinza is building something truly differentiated and impactful in the gaming space by combining competitive esports, rewards-first daily engagement, and strong community-led growth loops. While I resonated strongly with MetaNinza’s vision of empowering competitive gamers with community, commerce and beyond, what excited and drew me most was their clarity of vision – to move beyond tournaments and build a full participation ecosystem where gamers engage meaningfully every day and are rewarded fairly and sustainably. I’m excited to join MetaNinza as Co-Founder and Chief of Staff, and look forward to scale this platform with disciplined execution, strong partnerships, and a tech-first approach that puts gamers at the center.”
Mishra’s appointment comes at a pivotal phase for MetaNinza as it strengthens its core platform and accelerates growth across tournaments, quests, rewards, and community-led engagement. Over the next three years, the company plans to expand into a broader social engagement platform for gaming communities across South East Asia, targeting over 600 million gaming enthusiasts.
Commenting on the appointment, Sudhansu Sinha, Founder & CEO, MetaNinza, said, “Anand brings a rare combination of deep gaming ecosystem understanding and execution rigor. He has a wealth of experience in building winning ecosystems and platforms at scale across both gaming and tech, with proven delivery in growth, partnerships, operations and product execution. His acumen and expertise in building gaming ecosystems and leading cross-functional, high-performing teams is just what we need, as MetaNinza proceeds towards its next big phase of growth. Moving ahead, Anand’s leadership will play an instrumental role in building and aligning our teams, doubling down on execution, and curating a platform that can be seamlessly scaled across India, South East Asia and the global markets, as we build the future of rewards-led gaming together.”
MetaNinza is building a full-stack gaming and esports engagement ecosystem encompassing tournaments and scrims, a coin wallet and rewards redemption system, offerwalls and daily quests, referral- and community-driven growth loops, and robust anti-abuse frameworks. The company is also strengthening its organic growth engine through 16score.com, a newly launched global esports news platform focused on community engagement and long-term user acquisition. While MetaNinza is currently India-first in its execution, its platform is designed for global scalability as it aims to evolve into a category-defining gaming and esports engagement brand.
