Singapore-based pixel art metaverse Chillchat has revealed that it has raised $1.85 million in a seed equity funding round that was led by the VC arm of blockchain platform Solana, Solana Ventures.
The round saw participation from FTX Ventures, Animoca Brands, Griffin Gaming Partners, A&T Capital, and Yield Guild Games Southeast Asia.
Infinity Ventures Crypto and Diamond Hands Ventures were also involved, as were advisors from PKO Investments, such as Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Crunchyroll co-founder Kun Gao, Kabam co-founder Holly Liu, Rotten Tomatoes co-founder Patrick Lee, and more.
The funding will be used for expanding Chillchat’s teams both in product and growth, which in turn will enable the development of Web3 tools, channels, and infrastructures. It has also brought the company’s equity valuation up to $10 million.
Pocket platform
The Chillchat metaverse was built to be a ‘create2earn’ platform running on the Solana blockchain, aiming to become a ‘pocket metaverse’ available on mobile and on browsers. It enables users to create their own NFTs in the form of characters, tilesets, items and more, with its world builder and tools supporting the creation of fully functioning games.
“We’re aiming to build a casual social-gaming metaverse, so we chose the Solana blockchain as we believe it is the best consumer blockchain with low fees and high speed,” Chillchat CEO James Au commented.
“Getting strategic support from Solana Ventures helps us grow and turn our dream into reality. We’re thrilled to have Solana lead our seed equity raise.”
Chillchat conducted a public sale of NFTs in January where 1,000 of its 1,500 limited “origin” characters were minted, with each NFT at the value of 2 SOL ($240). Since then, the value of each NFT has reached 37.5 SOL ($4,000) each.
Solana Labs Head of Games BD Johnny Lee added, “From our first meeting and playtest with Chillchat, we saw not only a very professional and dedicated team, but a unique and fun creation tool UI that has the potential to bring blockchain UGC to all types of players.”
