By
Steve Muchoki
April 23rd, 2024
Animoca Brands was impacted by the FTX collapse as about a dozen of its outfits had significant exposure to the bankrupt firm.
Animoca Brands, one of the biggest metaverse firms and investors in today’s Web3 ecosystem might be tapering down its projected fundraising expectations billed for the first quarter of this year. Speaking in a Twitter Spaces interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Yat Siu, co-founder, and chairman of Animoca Brands said the company is now looking to raise the sum of $1 billion from investors.
Projecting fundraising targets has always been a tricky one, especially at a time when the industry is experiencing one of its coldest winters in history. The projected fundraiser is billed for the new Web3 and Metaverse fund that was floated by Animoca Brands recently. The initial projection as revealed by Siu back in November was $2 billion, bringing the projection cut to 50%.
The collapse of the FTX Derivatives Exchange had a significant impact across the board. Animoca Brands was equally impacted by the collapse as about a dozen of its outfits had significant exposure to the bankrupt firm. One of its subsidiaries, NFT spaceship seller Star Atlas, had a bulk of its treasury on the collapsed exchange.
Despite this event, Siu said investors’ appetite is not necessarily clamped yet and while he said he remains hopeful that the funds will be raised, he acknowledged that per the current sentiment, the funds may fall short of the target.
“Q1 is the goal and then let’s see what happens,” Siu said. “It is fair to say it’s a challenging market. But we have quite a bit of interest.”
The plans for the fund will be to invest in promising startups in the emerging metaverse world and it will be set up in conjunction with Homer Sun, a former executive with American multinational financial services firm, Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).
Animoca Brands and Its Robust Funding
Last year, Animoca Brands came off as one of the firms with the largest backing from investors. Its latest funding round was closed back in September last year as reported by Coinspeaker with the firm raising $100 million.
The company noted at the time that its investors are tasked with serving more purposes than just financing the firm.
“Animoca Brands has grown significantly as a company in the last year, and our new investors will contribute strategic advice and perspective as we build the world’s leading company furthering digital property rights in the Web3 industry.”
Animoca Brands has made judicious use of the funds it has raised in the past few years with investments in more than 380 companies. The crypto winter experienced last year led to the collapse of several token valuations, a trend that also impacted Animoca Brands’ revenue.
“Because our revenues are based on tokens, the overall revenue in fiat terms will also be affected,” Yat Siu noted.