
Hong Kong blockchain unicorn Animoca Brands raises another US$75 million as crypto crash persists
- Animoca Brands is now valued at US$5.9 billion and plans to use its funds for new acquisitions and licensing intellectual property
- The company, known for its metaverse platform The Sandbox, has been a staunch Web3 supporter amid a crypto crash that has wiped billions from popular tokens
This marks Animoca’s fifth round of fundraising since the beginning of last year, giving the company a valuation of US$5.9 billion, the company said in a statement.
It is a modest increase from January, when a US$359 million fundraising round valued the company at US$5 billion. That round more than doubled its US$2.2 billion valuation from last October.
Meta and Animoca Brands face off over metaverse visions at Hong Kong webinar
Animoca is one of the most active investors in the NFT space, boasting a portfolio of more than 200 companies and projects, including a stake in OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace, and play-to-earn game Axie Infinity.
As most NFTs are priced in cryptocurrencies, the popularity of the collectible digital assets has also nosedived from its peak late last year. Sales volumes on OpenSea fell by more than 70 per cent in June from the previous month, according to Dune Analytics.
Last November, the number of daily NFT sales hovered between 160,000 and 200,000 globally, according to data from Nonfungible.com. On Monday, it was around just 31,000.
Animoca plans to keep pushing for what it calls an “open metaverse” and will promote the ownership of virtual lands with its new capital, the company said. It will also use the money to continue to fund strategic acquisitions, investments, and product development, while also securing licenses for popular intellectual properties, according to the company.
The latest financing is “the second tranche” of its January funding round, the company said. Existing investors including Liberty City Ventures and Kingsway Capital participated in the new round, while Sequoia China, which took part in the previous two rounds, was not named in the latest announcement.
