Target locked! After driving digital property rights via NFTs and gaming, Animoca Brands will now go full force in growing the open metaverse. To achieve this, the Hong Kong-based game software and venture capital company completed a capital raise of $358,888,888 at a pre-money valuation of US$5 billion. With fresh funds and a stellar track record, it will be another record-breaking year for the NFT gaming space.
Liberty City Ventures led the round with other notable investors. The impressive list includes 10T Holdings, C Ventures, Delta Fund, Gemini Frontier Fund, Winklevoss Capital, and many more!
We are humbled to announce we raised US$358,888,888 in a round led by @LCVentures. This values Animoca Brands at US$5 billion (pre-money). We continue to advance our glorious plans for the #openmetaverse and #NFTs. Great things ahead! Press release here: https://t.co/5UF1GqvzBm pic.twitter.com/X74xgep1OQ
— Animoca Brands (@animocabrands) January 18, 2022
Animoca Brands Doubling Down on the Open Metaverse
According to the announcement, the game publishing giant will use the new capital to continue funding strategic acquisitions and investments. The team also earmarked a budget for product development and licenses for popular intellectual property.
Animoca Brands is working to build the open metaverse by bringing digital property rights to online users through the use of blockchain and NFTs. As reiterated by Founder Yat Sui, “there is a need for a free and open metaverse.” These technologies enable the true digital ownership of users’ virtual assets and data. In addition, it can open doors for various DeFi and GameFi opportunities including play-to-earn.
He added, “We have set ourselves the ambitious goals of building an open Web3 and facilitating an open metaverse that expands financial inclusion.”
1/ Proud and humbled to announce @animocabrands raising US$358,888,888 in a round led by @LCVentures with investors kingsway @tyler @cameron @Gemini @georgesoros @sequoia @paraficapital @smilegroup_in and many more #openmetaverse frens for details a 🧵👇https://t.co/u5SCIkEwIv
— Yat Siu (@ysiu) January 18, 2022
The numbers also justify the NFT giant’s move to focus on the open Metaverse. According to NewZoo, the global video game market generated $180.3 billion in 2021. Meanwhile, the metaverse market size is poised to grow to around $829 billion by 2028. As it is, Animoca Brands is leading the charge in innovating decentralized in-game rewards and monetization in video games. So focusing on the open metaverse is a natural progression.
About the Game Publisher Giant
The Hong Kong Unicorn is a prolific investor in NFT-centric and Web 3.0 companies. It is behind The Sandbox and its associated utility token SAND and other notable gaming projects. In addition, it is an active investor in more than 150 of the world’s leading NFT and metaverse-related companies. By leading, we mean OpenSea, Dapper Labs, YGG, and Star Atlas. It also has subsidiaries like venture accelerator Brinc.
Over the course of 2021, Animoca Brands raised $216.28 Million to bring its vision to life. So with the recent $358,888,888 infusion, it exceeded last year’s total capital raised. Definitely a good indication of great things to come!
Despite a successful run, Animoca Brands had its fair share of headaches. For example, fraudsters recently targeted its subsidiary Lympo Sports. The biggest sport NFT minting platform lost 167.2 million $LMT tokens or almost $20 Million! Prior to that, they had to cover losses after the Phantom Galaxies Discord hack.
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