Venture capital firm Animoca Brands has raised $20 million via the issue of new ordinary shares at a price per share of A$4.50. As part of the raise, Animoca has granted investors in the round a free-attaching utility token warrant on a 1:1 dollar basis.
As a major player in advancing digital property rights for gaming and the open metaverse, Animoca will use the new funding to accelerate its Mocaverse platform, one of the company’s marquee projects.
This includes driving product development, promoting the adoption of Web3, and forging strategic partnerships to expand Animoca Brands’ gaming, culture, and entertainment ecosystem. With around 450 investments in Web3 companies and projects, Animoca Brands aims to enhance and solidify its portfolio in these areas.
The Mocaverse ecosystem
Animoca describes Mocaverse as building Web3-native tools that allow users in the gaming, culture, and entertainment industries to create their own digital identities, build reputations, earn and spend loyalty points, and access the Mocaverse ecosystem.
Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands commented, “The ongoing evolution of the internet involves a shift from hierarchical power structures to autonomous ones, and the DAO-based approach of Mocaverse ensures that its community will be focused on driving innovation and collaboration across the broader Animoca Brands ecosystem.
“In addition to empowering users to participate in a vibrant community that generates new economic opportunities, Mocaverse will also serve as the digital identity, reputation, and loyalty system for other decentralised organisations,” Siu added.
Mocaverse will also be launching Moca ID, a collection of non-transferable NFTs that will allow users to create their own unique on-chain identities. These identities can be used to participate in the Mocaverse ecosystem and earn loyalty points through active engagement.
The funding round was led by Asian VC company CMCC Global, with other investors including Kingsway Capital, Liberty City Ventures, GameFi Ventures, Aleksander Larsen (founder of Sky Mavis), Gabby Dizon (founder of Yield Guild Games), institutional investors of Koda Capital, and others. Siu is also a participant in the round.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.