Animoca Brands raises US$75m, pledges to advance open metaverse vision

Hong Kong-based blockchain powerhouse Animoca Brands has raised US$75.32 million in the second tranche of a capital raising, and pledged to use the fund to advance its vision of an open metaverse. 

Investors in the current round included Liberty City Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Alpha Wave Ventures, 10T, SG Spring Limited Partnership Fund, Generation Highway Ltd, Cosmic Summit Investments Limited, and others, Animoca Brands said on July 12. 

This round was the second tranche of the fundraising previously announced on January 18, which was extended for due diligence processes. 

The company would use the proceeds to fund strategic acquisitions, investments, and product development, secure licences for popular intellectual properties, it said. The fund would also be used to advance the open metaverse through efforts to promote digital property rights, Animoca Brands said.

The parent company of the popular virtual world platform The Sandbox,  Animoca Brands has a portfolio of more than 340 investments, including leading NFT marketplace OpenSea and Dapper Labs.

Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, said the company would continue to solidify its leading position in the Web3 industry and in the field of “true digital ownership.”

“We are deeply honoured to continue to enjoy strong support from investors,” Siu said. “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.”

Emil Woods, managing partner of Liberty City Ventures, said Animoca Brands was a highly talented team of visionaries and builders at the forefront of a movement to embrace and fulfil the promise of Web3.

“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,” Woods said.

Manuel Stotz, the founder and chief executive of Kingsway Capital, said: “The genie of digital property rights has been let out of the bottle, and the internet users engaging with this revolutionary technology will not be returning to the digital servitude that is common in Web 2.0. The long-term growth trajectory of NFTs and similar ownership technology is extraordinarily steep, especially in emerging markets.”

“We are thrilled to grow our continuing partnership with Animoca Brands, who earned its stripes by emerging from the previous crypto winter of 2018-2019 with a much larger and stronger business,” Stotz said.