Player Unknown Battlegrounds creator Krafton has revealed that it has made an equity investment of $6.7 million in Seoul Auction Blue and its subsidiary Xbyblue, $2.5 million and $4.1 million respectively.
Seoul Auction Blue is an affiliate of South Korean art auctioneer, Seoul Auction, and operates the joint art purchasing platform, SOTWO. Its subsidiary, Xbyblue, secures and curates digital content IP to offer limited digital art content to its users.
In addition to the investment, Krafton has signed an agreement with the firms in order to develop projects oriented around NFTs.
Bluehole Studio, one of Krafton’s game studios, will lead the collaboration with Seoul Auction Blue and Xbyblue, which will focus on the creation and selling of NFT avatars together for future use in the metaverse.
Combining experience
“Krafton has a rich history of developing proprietary technologies, which are part of the foundation of our NFT and metaverse development,” said Krafton CEO Changhan Kim.
“Through partnerships with innovative companies like Seoul Action Blue, we’re confident we can combine our research and our partner’s expertise to offer new experiences that global users will find fun and engaging.”
Seoul Auction Blue CEO Jung-bong Lee commented: “Through the IP of various content and artists Xxblue has secured, we believe Seoul Auction Blue is uniquely positioned to expand and popularise the NFT and metaverse ecosystems. Xxblue possesses a number of sustainable art IP and it will take on challenges with strong partners like Krafton to grow and expand those IP.”
