Six weeks ago, Animoca Brands raised $88,888,888 at a $1 billion dollar valuation. Today, Animoca raised a second tranche of an additional $50 million, bringing total investments in this funding round to $138,888,888. The investors included Gobi Partners, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, Coinbase Ventures and others.
Animoca is mostly known for the development of blockchain games that incorporate non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The company has a partnership with Formula 1, Manchester City, and Moto GP, to name a few. Animoca launched F1 Delta Time with Formula 1, which is a similar platform to Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot and issues non-fungible tokens (NFTs) relating to the races. Its deals with MotoGP and Manchester City are for blockchain games.
Various F1 teams have signed their own NFT deals outside of F1 Delta Time. While many sports teams have followed the trend of signing NFT and fan token deals, so far, fewer are licensing blockchain games.
Animoca has recently expanded its NFT issuing service and has partnered with Bayern Munich and London-based team Queens Park Rangers. In addition, it has a partnership with the Olympics to license Olympic pins as NFTs.
Metaverses and play-to-earn
Animoca has other successful products such as the games The Sandbox and Tower Experiment. However, an area that Animoca is just beginning to explore but could have significantly aided the valuation are its pay-to-earn upcoming launches.
Animoca’s deal with the Olympics includes the development of an online game where players will be able to earn the pins. In addition, Animoca is an investor in Yield Guild Games, a company promoting a play-to-earn economy where players can potentially earn living wages playing video games.
The company also has a partnership with Hedera Hashgraph that enables football NFT owners to sell the digital asset back to clubs for a fixed amount of HBAR, Hedera’s network cryptocurrency. This would be the first solution that makes NFTs redeemable for a guaranteed amount of crypto assets. It has the potential to attract interest in the market by making it less risky.
Part of the investment in Animoca is likely to go towards these developments. The company also said some of the money would be used for acquisitions and licensing popular intellectual properties.
“By creating games and worlds around ownership of digital goods, Animoca Brands has introduced a true paradigm shift, placing power with users instead of developers,” said Gobi Partners’ managing partner Chibo Tang. “We’re seeing the emergence of a completely new ecosystem – a true metaverse.”
Meanwhile, Dapper Labs raised $305 million at a $2.6 billion valuation and will potentially raise more at a $7.5 billion valuation.