Framework and Bitkraft lead $6 million seed funding into gaming studio Jungle

Bitkraft and Framework Ventures co-led a $6 million seed funding round into Jungle, a Brazil-based web3 gaming studio. 

Delphi Digital, Karatage, Fourth Revolution Capital, Monoceros, 32bit Ventures, Stateless Ventures, Snackclub and Norte Ventures also took part in the round, which closed at the tail end of last year. CEO and co-founder Joao Beraldo chose not to disclose the valuation in an interview with The Block. 

The funding will be primarily used to build out its team, marketing, and distribution for the games it produces. 

Co-founded by Beraldo, Giulio Ferraro and Lucas Kertzman, Jungle differs from other web3 gaming studios in that it seeks to acquire “underutilized” intellectual property rather than developing it in-house. 

“Usually, these games are killed during soft launch for reasons that aren’t inherent to the quality of the IP or the product,” said Beraldo. “It’s closer to marketing challenges of the game or its target audience not being developed with the right business model.” 

By leapfrogging over the often-lengthy development process,  Beraldo claimed that this speeds up the release by around two to three years. Jungle says that its first game, a web3 shooter, will be released this year on mobile devices.

For the players

Notably, the web3 elements of the games produced by Jungle will be opt-in, said Beraldo, who believes that players shouldn’t be forced to play on web3 rails if they don’t choose to engage with the wider web3 ecosystem. 

“We’re not in the business of saying we know what’s best for the players, and we’re not going to make the choice for them,” he said. 

The gaming studio hasn’t chosen a blockchain network that it plans to build on top of. Still, Jungle has one thing in mind: building blockchain-based games accessible to the Latin American audience it aims to serve.

Along with language localization, Jungle’s games will be optimized for the hardware devices and internet speeds typical across the region. “We’re looking at a population with mostly low-end Android devices that are going to be playing these games on the go with very cheap data plans,” he said. 

Investors play games 

Jungle’s seed funding round follows a flurry of funding for projects in the NFTs and gaming subsector. For the last 19 months, the sub-sector of NFTs/Gaming has raised the most funding rounds out of any sub-sector, per The Block Research. 

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