Gurhan Kiziloz Traded Fintech for Gaming: Behind Nexus International’s $1.2 Billion Revenue Year

Before gaming, before Nexus International, before $1.2 billion in revenue, Gurhan Kiziloz worked in fintech. The experience did not go well. The sector proved to be one where regulatory complexity and institutional relationships mattered more than the quality of what you built. Kiziloz found himself blocked at multiple turns, unable to move forward despite having products he believed in. He eventually left fintech for gaming. The decision transformed his career. It also shaped how he would build everything that followed.

Fintech’s appeal to entrepreneurs is obvious. Financial services represent trillions of dollars in annual revenue, much of it extracted by incumbents through fees and friction that technology could theoretically eliminate. The opportunity to disrupt banks, payment processors, and other financial institutions has attracted enormous investment and talent. What the opportunity obscures is how difficult the sector makes life for newcomers.

Kiziloz experienced this difficulty first-hand. Fintech is heavily regulated, and the regulations tend to favour those already in the market. Compliance costs are substantial. Licensing requirements vary by jurisdiction and take time to navigate. Partnerships with existing financial institutions are often necessary for basic functionality, but those institutions have little incentive to help potential disruptors. The playing field is tilted toward incumbents in ways that are structural rather than incidental.

The frustration of operating in this environment led Kiziloz to look elsewhere. Gaming offered something fintech did not: a clearer path from effort to outcome. The regulatory requirements exist, but they follow predictable patterns. Secure a licence, meet the compliance standards, and you can operate. There are no incumbent banks whose cooperation you require. No institutional gatekeepers deciding whether your product reaches users. The competition happens in the market, not in the regulatory process.

The contrast with fintech was sharp enough to redirect Kiziloz’s career. He entered gaming without the background the industry typically expects, no years at established operators, no network of regulatory contacts, no inherited credibility. What he brought instead was an understanding of what it meant to be blocked by industry structure and a determination to operate in an environment where that wouldn’t happen.

Spartans.com was built with these lessons in mind. The platform was designed to succeed on its own merits, without depending on relationships or institutional support. Payouts in seconds became the defining feature, a capability that users could experience directly and that didn’t require anyone’s permission to deliver. The product would either be good enough to attract users or it wouldn’t. The outcome would depend on execution, not on navigating structures designed to prevent competition.

Megaposta extended the same thinking to Brazil. The market had regulatory requirements, but they were knowable and achievable. Build a platform that meets the standards, localise it properly for Brazilian users, and compete. The path was demanding but clear. It was nothing like the endless obstacles Kiziloz had encountered in fintech.

The rejection Kiziloz experienced in fintech also shaped his approach to funding. When he sought venture capital for Lanistar, an earlier fintech venture, investors turned him down. The experience of asking for money and being refused left a mark. When Kiziloz built Nexus, he did it without outside capital. The company was funded from his own resources and grown on its own cash flows. He would not put himself in a position where someone else’s decision about whether to invest determined whether he could build.

The independence this created has defined Nexus ever since. The company has no outside shareholders, no board to satisfy, no quarterly expectations to manage. Kiziloz makes the decisions and bears the consequences. The structure reflects a founder who learned early that depending on others, whether investors or institutional gatekeepers, meant giving them power over your outcome.

There is a version of this story that frames the fintech years as failure. Kiziloz has not hidden from the difficulties he faced during that period. But failure is only failure if nothing useful comes from it. The fintech experience taught Kiziloz what kind of environment he needed to succeed and what kind of dependency he needed to avoid. Gaming offered the first. Self-funding provided the second. Nexus was built on both.

The $1.2 billion in revenue Nexus generated in 2025 arrived through an approach shaped by rejection. The speed, the independence, the focus on execution over relationships, all of it traces back to lessons learned when things were not going well. Kiziloz did not succeed in fintech, but he learned from fintech what success would require.

He found an industry where execution mattered. He built without asking permission. He funded his own growth. The setbacks that preceded Nexus became the foundation for everything that followed.

---

Disclaimer: This is a Press Release provided by a third party who is responsible for the content. Please conduct your own research before taking any action based on the content.