~$360M Funding Pushes Animoca Valuation Over $5B

The popular NFT gaming investor Animoca Brand raised almost $359 million in the latest funding round, which pushed its valuation over the $5 billion mark. 

New Year, New Funding Round

The latest funding round raked in exactly $358,888,888 and was primarily led by Liberty City Ventures. Other investors participating in the funding included Winklevoss Capital, Soros Fund Management, Sequoia China, Gemini Frontier Fund, and 10T Holdings. 

Animoca Brand has been consistently conducting successful fundraising rounds throughout the last year and has obviously continued the trend in the new year as well. The company had two funding rounds in May and July of 2021, where a total of $139 million was raised, at a valuation of $1 billion each from investors like coinbase Ventures, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, and Razer’s zVentures. Soon after, the company raised another $65 million, at a valuation of $2.2 billion in October 2021 in a strategic fundraising round intended to bring onboard new partners to co-develop NFT games with, like gaming company Ubisoft. 

Share Placement For Funding Round

A spokesperson for the brand claimed that the latest funding brings forth 111,173,515 new shares to the table, at the rate of $3.24 per share. 

The spokesperson also claimed, 

“Secondary placement of shares is occurring because there was high demand that could not be fulfilled in the primary placement. However secondary placement is not considered part of this capital raise and any sums exchanged via secondary sales do not count toward the company’s finances.”

Animoca’s NFT-Based Investments

The NFT gaming unicorn is channeling all the capital raised towards expanding its own IP in the metaverse, by supporting some of the most prominent builders in the NFT space. Animoca has so far invested in OpenSea (leading NFT marketplace), Dapper Labs (Creator of the NBA Top Shot), and Sky Mavis (developer of the NFT-based game Axie Infinity). 

The company is also supporting the development of the metaverse by launching its own NFT-based games. Case in example, The Sandbox – an upcoming Ethereum-based metaverse game hyped up by big names like Snoop Dogg, Adidas, Atari, and so on. 

Meta A Threat To Decentralization

With Facebook’s rebranding as Meta, Animoca is certainly viewing the tech giant as a potential competitor in the space. The company’s founder and executive chairman, Yat Siu, expressed his views on how Meta’s centralized organizational structure might not allow for cross-platform interoperability.

Yat Siu says, 

“We’re kind of in a hurry to make this happen. The biggest threat is not regulators. I think regulators are necessary to keep the space proper and everything is secure […] I think the threat is Facebook, and the threat is Tencent.”

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.