Hong Kong-based software and venture firm Animoca Brands has secured $358.8 million in equity investments to fuel new acquisitions in the non-fungible tokens (NFTs), gaming and metaverse sectors, further cementing the largest crypto trends in 2022.
The funding round was led by Liberty City Ventures and featured participation from some of the largest blockchain venture funds, including 10T Holdings, Gemini Frontier Fund, ParaFi Capital, Provident, Sequoia China, and Winklevoss Capital, among many others.
Animoca said the capital injection will be used to finance acquisitions and strategic investments, product development and acquisition of licenses for intellectual properties. The company said its vision is to create a metaverse that enhances users' digital property rights through NFTs. Opportunities within GameFi: a broad concept that refers to the Financialization of games through NFT and DeFi โ are also conceived as part of this environment.
"Play for fun" or play to win? The president of Japanese game developer and publisher Square Enix has released a letter to fans, detailing his plans for the metaverse, blockchain, and NFTs. https://t.co/MFYFVv2BM2
โ Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) January 3, 2022
Regarding GameFi, Animoca referenced industry research showing that the global video game market is expected to attain $829 billion in 2028, up from $180.3 billion in 2021. Considerable industry growth is expected to fuel play-to-win games and other forms of in-game monetization.
Animoca raised more than $216 million over the course of 2021, while its subsidiary, The Sandbox, concluded a financing round of 93 million dollars in early November. With the latest funding, Animoca further cemented itself as one of the fastest growing crypto unicorns with a pre-money valuation of $5 billion. That's more than double what $2.2 billion valuation received in October 2021.
Startups become โunicornsโ when they reach a valuation of at least $1 billion. Various crypto-focused companies have crossed that threshold in the last 12 months, including Amber Group, Bitso, Blockstream, CoinList, ConsenSys, Figure Technologies, OpenSea, and 2TM, among others.
Related: OpenSea Raises $300M For Crypto Digital Market
Venture capital funds are betting big on blockchain technology and its role in reshaping the internet and digital economy. As Cointelegraph reported, venture funds invested over $17 billion in blockchain startups for the first 10 months of 2021. That's more than three times the amount for all of 2020.
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