By
Andy Watson
April 26th, 2024
While Animoca Brands pulled $216.28 million in 2021 to power its vision of digital property rights and the open metaverse, one of its core subsidiaries, The Sandbox completed a capital raise of $93 million as of November 2021.
Game publisher, and venture capital startup, Animoca Brands has extended its pre-money valuation to $5 billion following a new funding round where it pulled $358.88 million from key investors in the blockchain ecosystem and beyond.
As announced by the company, the funding round enjoined participation from 10T Holdings, C Ventures, Delta Fund, Gemini Frontier Fund, Gobi Partners Greater Bay Area, Kingsway, L2 Capital, Mirae Asset, Pacific Century Group, ParaFi Capital, Provident, Senator Investment Group, Sequoia China, Smile Group, Stable Asset Management, Soros Fund Management, Wildcat Capital Management, Winklevoss Capital, and was led by Liberty City Ventures.
According to the firm, the new capital will be deployed to fund strategic “acquisitions and investments, product development, and licenses for popular intellectual properties.”
The blockchain ecosystem and its customized offshoots include decentralized finance (DeFi), Non-Fungible Token (NFT), and gaming amongst others has seen tremendous growth over the past few years, and Animoca Brands has prominently tagged along with the evolution. The startup has positioned itself as a viable offshoot that can help reshape the switch to the internet of the future, a characteristic that makes it very promising to investors.
“We are pleased to see continued and growing support from influential and strategic investors for Animoca Brands’ mission to deliver true digital property rights and build the open metaverse,” said Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands. “We have set ourselves the ambitious goals of building an open Web3 and facilitating an open metaverse that expands financial inclusion. In 2021 we saw tremendous growth in this space and Animoca Brands has been one of the forefront leaders in the development of this industry. We believe we are still at the initial stages of a new Internet revolution, and there are tremendous opportunities ahead of us in 2022 and beyond.”
While the gaming industry is projected to grow from $180.3 billion in 2021 to a metaverse market size that is expected to grow to around $829 billion by 2028, players with the right strategies like Animoca Brands are on track to benefit more in the long run.
Animoca Brands and Its Strategic Portfolio
This recently concluded funding round is a sequel to other rounds that have been conducted by the firm in the past year. While Animoca Brands pulled $216.28 million in 2021 to power its vision of digital property rights and the open metaverse, one of its core subsidiaries, The Sandbox completed a capital raise of $93 million as of November 2021.
With the funding thus far, Animoca Brands has invested in a broad portfolio of game products, both centralized and decentralized, branded and original, with coverage across most primary platforms including mobile devices, game consoles, PC, web, and the blockchain. Additionally, the company has invested in successful projects including OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Yield Guild Games, Star Atlas, Axie Infinity, Thetan Arena, and many others.
