Animoca Brands Raises $75M, Boosts Valuation to $5.9B Amid Crypto Winter

Animoca said in a statement that it would use the new capital to fund new investments, strategic acquisitions, and product development.

Animoca Defies Bear Market With New Fundraise

One of the most prominent players in the Web3 gaming space, Animoca Brands, has raised $75 million at a $5.9 billion valuation.

The blockchain game developer and crypto venture capital firm announced the raise in a press release today, stating that it would use the new capital for new investments and acquisitions, as well as for securing licenses to popular intellectual properties and advancing the Metaverse further into the mainstream. “Digital property rights represent a society-defining generational shift that impacts everyone online and will set the stage for the emergence of the open metaverse,” said the firm’s co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu.

Investors backing Animoca include Liberty City Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Alpha Wave Ventures, 10T, SG Spring Limited Partnership Fund, Generation Highway Ltd, and Cosmic Summit Investments Limited. The latest round is notable because it comes only seven months after Animoca raised $359 million at a $5 billion valuation at the peak of the NFT bull market in January, meaning the firm increased its valuation by $900 million despite the significant market downturn. 

Commenting on the raise, Emil Woods, managing partner of Liberty City Ventures, which led Animoca’s previous round, said that, over the next decade, “humanity will discover and embrace the game changing power that blockchain based digital ownership of assets will bring to countless aspects of daily life.” 

Animoca is one of the leading developers and investors in the NFT and Web3 gaming space. In November 2021, it launched The Sandbox, which has grown to become one of the most popular Web3 games. It has also made over 340 investments in the space, including in blue-chip companies like the NFT marketplace OpenSea and crypto game developer DapperLabs.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.