Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming developer Animoca Brands has raised $75 million in a fundraising drive, driving the company’s valuation up to $5.5 billion even as the market continues to reel amid the collapse in cryptocurrency prices.
Animoca Brands, an Australian company, said in an announcement on Tuesday, that the raise was the second part of a $360 million round undertaken in January 2022. The latest raise, supported by investors including Liberty City Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Alpha Wave Ventures, 10T, SG Spring Limited Partnership Fund, Generation Highway Ltd, Cosmic Summit Investments Limited, and others, was delayed given concerns around the collapse of TerraUSD and its effect on the overall cryptocurrency markets, said Yat Siu, Animoca’s co-founder.
The company indicated that it would use the new capital to:
Continue to fund strategic acquisitions, investments, and product development, secure licenses for popular intellectual properties, and advance the open metaverse, including through its efforts to promote digital property rights for online users.
Famous for its Web 3.0 projects, Animoca has reportedly invested in over 340 companies in an effort to build its vision of a metaverse based around blockchain technology, in which virtual assets in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can be bought and sold using cryptocurrencies. The company is famous for operating The Sandbox, a metaverse platform in which people can buy virtual pieces of land in the form of NFTs. Animoca has also undertaken a partnership with Yuga Labs, the creator of the massively popular NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club, and the two are working together on the upcoming game Otherside.
Co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands Yat Siu commented:
Digital property rights represent a society-defining generational shift that impacts everyone online and will set the stage for the emergence of the open metaverse. We are deeply honoured to continue to enjoy strong support from investors as we work to solidify the leadership position of Animoca Brands in the Web3 industry and in the field of true digital ownership.
In their announcement, Animoca said that through the use of technologies such as blockchain and NFTs, the company is actively working to deliver digital ownership of users’ virtual assets and data, thereby enabling various DeFi and GameFi opportunities, asset interoperability, and an open framework so that it can lead to greater fairness for all those participating in the open metaverse.
Manuel Stotz, founder, and CEO of Kingsway Capital has this to say about the capital raise and about Animoca Brands:
The genie of digital property rights has been let out of the bottle, and the Internet users engaging with this revolutionary technology will not be returning to the digital servitude that is common in Web 2.0. The long-term growth trajectory of NFTs and similar ownership technology is extraordinarily steep, especially in emerging markets. We are thrilled to grow our continuing partnership with Animoca Brands, who earned its stripes by emerging from the previous crypto winter of 2018-2019 with a much larger and stronger business.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
