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

Blockchain

Xinmei Shen

Published: 8:00pm, 12 Jul 2022

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Hong Kong-based blockchain video gaming company Animoca Brands has raised US$75 million in a new round of financing, the company announced on Tuesday, showing signs of growth even amid a crypto market slump that sent global sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) plunging.

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.

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Known for its projects involving Web3 – a loosely defined vision for a decentralised internet built around blockchain technology – Animoca operates The Sandbox, a metaverse platform where people can buy virtual plots of land as NFTs. The company is also a partner of Yuga Labs, the creator of the popular NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club. The two are working together on the upcoming game Otherside.

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.

The company’s latest funding round comes amid a crash in the cryptocurrency market that has wiped billions of dollars from the value of popular tokens. The tightening of monetary policies in major Western economies contributed to a global sell-off in a range of risky assets.

Retail investors have suffered heavy losses and a growing number of major cryptocurrency firms, including lender Celsius Network and hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, are mired in financial distress.

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.

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Hong Kong’s latest tech unicorn Animoca Brands is betting big on video game NFTs

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.

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