Animoca Brands investor update for the quarter and fiscal year ending on 31 December 2024

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5 March 2025 - Animoca Brands Corporation Limited (“Animoca Brands'' or the “Company”) is pleased to report key unaudited financial and business highlights for the three months ending on 31 December 2024 (“Q4 2024”) and the 12 months ending on 31 December 2024 (“FY2024”). 

 

The results below include contributions from the Company’s business units, including but not limited to The Sandbox, Moca Network, Open Campus, Anichess, GAMEE, TinyTap, Animoca Brands Japan, nWay, Eden Games, Blowfish Studios, Pixowl, and Crazy Defense Heroes (TOWER), in addition to Web3 services revenue and revenue arising from portfolio investments and partnerships.

 

Key financial highlights for Q4 and FY2024 (unaudited, non-IFRS measures)

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• Bookings (1) of US$314 million for the 12 months ending on 31 December 2024, compared with US$280 million for the prior 12 months ending on 31 December 2023. Bookings by each business segment were the following:

  • US$165 million from the Digital Asset Advisory (DAA) business, representing a notable increase of 116% YoY;

  • US$110 million from Web3 operating businesses of subsidiaries and projects incubated by the Company, which include blockchain-based sales, in-app purchases, and other non-blockchain sales; 

  • US$39 million in investment activity, which includes realized gains from digital asset investments and investment management fees from Animoca Ventures (any unrealized investment gains are reflected in the balance sheet).

• Bookings of US$108 million in Q4 2024, compared with US$40 million in Q4 2023, representing a 170% increase in bookings YoY. Bookings in the fourth quarter of 2024 include the following:

  • US$57 million from DAA; 

  • US$37 million from Web3 operating businesses;

  • US$14 million from investment management. 

• Operating expenses (excluding non-cash and non-token-based payments such as share-based payments) of US$217 million for the 12 months ending on 31 December 2024, compared with US$246 million for the prior 12 months ending on 31 December 2023. Total operating expenses decreased by 12% in 2024 as a continuation of the optimization initiatives that began in the second half of 2023 across the Company and its subsidiaries, including cost reductions and the leveraging of new AI tools.

• Operating expenses of US$49 million in Q4 2024, compared with US$58 million in Q4 2023, representing a 15% decrease in expenses YoY.

• Financial assets and token reserve balances as of 31 December 2024 include the following:

  • Cash and stablecoin balances of US$293 million;

  • Digital assets of US$538 million, composed of US$356 million in available-for-sale assets and US$182 million from unvested assets subject to lock-up on the balance sheet. Major liquid tokens held on the balance sheet include ETH, BTC, APE, and others;  

  • Minority investments in over 540 portfolio companies, which includes investments made by Animoca Ventures. The fair value of the Company’s minority investment holdings is US$564 million as of the end of Q4 2024.

  • Off-balance sheet token reserves (2) of US$2.9 billion, comprising tokens issued by Animoca Brands majority-owned Web3 subsidiaries and projects for which Animoca Brands is a launch partner. These reserves include tokens such as SAND, EDU, MOCA, GMEE, and others.

 

Note (1): “Bookings” is a non-IFRS measure of the total sales and income generating activity of the Company and is commonly used by companies in the gaming sector to more effectively represent economic performance. It represents the total sales activity of the Company combining revenue reflected on the income statement and deferred revenue, which is a liability on the balance sheet. Deferred revenue is an accounting concept that represents payments received for sales that have not yet been earned. It generally applies to digital assets sold in the Company’s games and applications. Although the Company collects payment for these sales, it is not able to recognize them as revenue on the income statement because there is an obligation to provide services within those games and applications in the future. As services are provided over time, deferred revenue will be recognized as revenue. 

 

Note (2): “Off-balance sheet token reserves” are not classified as assets under current accounting standards and are not recorded in the Company’s balance sheet. However, the economic benefits from the token reserves could largely accrue to the Company over time as they are used to provide incentives and engagement to the users of the Company’s Web3 platforms and applications.​

 

Key business highlights for Q4 2024

 

1. Digital Asset Advisory (DAA)

The Company’s Digital Asset Advisory (“DAA”) business provides Web3 projects with token advisory, tokenomics, marketing, listing advisory, node operation, and trading services. In FY2024 Animoca Brands recorded a notable 116% YoY growth in annual revenue from the DAA business as the Company diversified its revenue streams.

 

Over the course of 2024, Animoca Brands provided advisory services to 21 successful Web3 projects, including PIXEL and PENGU, generating a total of US$68 million in token advisory revenues. The Company also generated US$97 million of revenue from ongoing market-making, treasury management, blockchain node operations, and yield-generating trading strategies. 

 

2. Web3 Operating Businesses

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Moca Network

Moca Network, one of Animoca Brands’ flagship projects, is building the chain-agnostic digital identity infrastructure for the open internet by providing one universal account for a user’s assets, identity, and reputation across multiple ecosystems. Moca Network evolved from the Mocaverse project; the latter is now positioned as Moca Network’s consumer brand providing curated experiences and rewards to users based on their activity and reputation through the digital identifier (DID) Moca ID and products including Mocana, MocaDrop, and MocaList.

 

Moca Network is powered by MOCA Coin, which is issued by the MOCA Foundation and serves as the utility token for data generation, storage, verification for users, AI agents, and DAO governance. 

 

In October 2024, Moca Network announced a partnership with SYMBIOGENESIS, the first NFT collectible art project of Square Enix, the leading Japanese video game publisher and entertainment company. The partnership aims to facilitate a seamless onboarding experience to the Web3 ecosystem for a crypto-curious audience.

 

In November 2024, Animoca Brands announced a raise of an additional tranche of funding of US$10 million for Moca Network, following the previous investments totaling US$31.88 million previously announced in December 2023. This funding tranche included participation from OKX Ventures, CMCC Global, HongShan (formerly Sequoia China), Republic Digital, Decima Fund, Kingsway Capital and others, with the purpose to fast-track and scale Moca Network’s operations.

 

Moca Network also announced a business partnership with SK Planet, one of South Korea’s largest information and communications technology platforms, to co-create blockchain-enabled user experiences within SK Planet's existing internet services, which will make use of Moca Network’s Account, Identity, and Reputation SDK (AIR SDK). SK Planet and Moca Network aim to onboard SK Planet’s 28 million KYC’d members to Web3.

 

In December 2024, MOCA Coin was listed on Upbit and Bithumb, two of the largest digital asset exchanges in South Korea. In addition, Binance Futures launched a USDⓈ-Margined MOCAUSDT perpetual contract with leverage (USDⓈ-Margined contracts are crypto derivatives quoted and settled in USDT, BUSD or USDC).

 

Open Campus and TinyTap

Open Campus is a community-led decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that is building an on-chain education network to empower both educators and students. Animoca Brands and its subsidiary TinyTap are launch partners of Open Campus. 

 

In October 2024, Open Campus announced strategic plans to enter the student finance sector and to tokenize the US$2.2 trillion student finance market. TinyTap also established the EDU Scholarship Fund, enhancing learning opportunities for students worldwide by providing students with up to US$1,000 in EDU credit usable on the TinyTap educational platform. EDU is the governance and utility token used by Open Campus.

 

In November 2024, Open Campus announced Semester 2 of its Hackathon Series with $250,000 in prizes, attracting over 700 dApp submissions. 

 

Open Campus’ EDU Chain is a Layer 3 blockchain on Arbitrum Orbit designed for consumer-facing education apps and on-chain education finance (EduFi). The EDU Chain testnet campaign ran from September 2024 to early January 2025, and recorded 2.3 million unique active wallets and 116 million transactions across dApps deployed on the testnet. The mainnet of EDU Chain was officially launched in January 2025.

 

In December 2024 EDU token was listed on Bullish exchange. 

 

Adoption of Open Campus ID surpassed 850,000 holders as of 31 December 2024, with 154,000 new users in Q4 2024, reflecting a 578% increase in new users over the previous quarter.

 

Anichess

Anichess is a progressive chess-based online strategy Web3 gaming project developed in a collaboration between Animoca Brands and Chess.com, the leading global online chess platform. In October 2024, Anichess launched the public alpha version of its game and partnered with Yield Guild Games (YGG) to distribute the game in Southeast Asia, one of Anichess’ top three regions in terms of registered players. In December 2024, Anichess recorded over 100,000 monthly active players.

 

GAMEE

GAMEE is a high-engagement mobile gaming platform focused on onboarding a mass gaming audience to Web3. It has over 100 million registered users and has served over 10 billion gameplay sessions across multiple ecosystems. GAMEE’s WatBird games and WatPoint mining have collectively onboarded 4 million user wallets into the TON ecosystem.

 

In December 2024, GAMEE announced the launch of GAMEE AdNetwork, a community-owned tokenized advertising network powered by the GAMEE token. GAMEE AdNetwork leverages GAMEE's total reach of more than 100 million registered users and 2 billion monthly impressions across its various games and products, with the aim to enhance the way value generated by digital advertising is shared with advertisers as well as their audiences. GAMEE AdNetwork executed 17 ad campaigns during Q4 2024.

 

Additionally, GAMEE sold over 250,000 Founders Packs of Moon Cards to more than 230,000 unique holders for over 701 million WATCoin (approximately US$230,000 at the time of sale). WATCoin is the utility token of WatBird on the TON blockchain. Moon Cards can be used in an upcoming trading card Telegram game built around memecoins narratives. Each card represents a memecoin and its parameters are dynamic, being tied to real-world events.

 

The Sandbox

The Sandbox is an immersive metaverse platform in which users play, create, and monetize unique experiences alongside their favorite brands, IPs, and celebrities across gaming, entertainment, music, art, and other aspects of culture. Animoca Brands acquired The Sandbox in 2018 and it has been one of the Company’s main game operating businesses since then. The top-line bookings of The Sandbox are predominantly from the sale of SAND tokens and NFT sales. 

 

The Alpha Season 4 of The Sandbox started on 9 October and ended on 18 December 2024. Partners involved in this season include Attack on Titan, Chupa Chups, Fist of the North Star, Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen, Lionsgate, Playboy, Rabbids, The British Museum, The Smurfs, and more. Over 580,000 unique players completed more than 39 million quests in the Alpha Season 4, accumulating over 1 million gameplay hours, which averages to 144 minutes of gameplay time per user.

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3. Investment Management

Animoca Brands has been investing in Web3 projects and technologies since 2018, and this strategy has significantly helped the Company to gain deep industry expertise and exposure. As of Q4 2024, Animoca Brands held over 540 investments in its portfolio, including investments made from the Company’s balance sheet, its venture fund Animoca Ventures, and various accelerator partnerships. Investment management revenue is earned through the sale of tokens and exits from equity positions in the Company’s portfolio, and management and performance fees from Animoca Ventures.

 

In Q4 2024, Animoca Brands invested in 12 new projects, bringing the total number of investments made during the year to over 70. These investments span over 20 sectors, including AI, infrastructure, decentralized finance (DeFi), and gaming. Notable investments include 0G Labs, Cookie3, FLock.io, MyShell, and Talus.

 

The Company has focused its efforts on the AI sector in 2024 by investing in liquid tokens of AI-themed projects, including Virtuals, ai16z, Aixbt, Griffain, and HeyAnon.

 

As of the end of 2024, the fair valuation of the Company’s private investment holdings stood at US$564 million, primarily consisting of equity and SAFT (Simple Agreements for Future Tokens) investments in private companies and Web3 projects. As at the end of 2023, the valuation of the Company’s private investment holdings was US$690 million. The year-over-year decrease in valuation is primarily due to the following: 

 

1. Multiple SAFT investments in the Company’s portfolio underwent successful token launches during FY2024, resulting in the transfer of the respective investment holdings' value into digital assets or cash/stablecoins, meaning that they no longer constitute part of the portfolio balance; 

2. Over the course of FY2024 the Company sold several equity holdings in private companies; and 

3. Several of the Company's equity and SAFT holdings have been written down due to changes in their underlying business performance. 

 

4. Appointment of Hall Chadwick as Auditor

On 23 December 2024 Animoca Brands held a general meeting in which shareholders approved a resolution to remove DFK Collins and appoint Hall Chadwick as the Company’s group auditor.  A recording of the general meeting is available here. Hall Chadwick brings substantial experience and resource capacity to effectively provide the necessary audit services to the Company, covering a period of time during which the Company expanded rapidly. Hall Chadwick has experience in the accounting standards relevant to digital asset transactions and has the resources necessary to assist the Company in complying with financial reporting. 

 

5. Key AI Initiatives

In addition to investing in AI projects in 2024, Animoca Brands entered into a strategic partnership with Virtuals.io to invest and accelerate the next generation of projects to drive the convergence of AI agent-driven technology and gaming.

 

In November 2024, Animoca Brands announced a partnership with FLock.io to drive decentralized AI model development for blockchain applications, setting new standards for privacy in AI and empowering users with trustless and transparent model training.

 

Animoca Brands has initiated or supported various incubation projects related to AI agents. One of the most prominent projects backed by the Company is HeyAni, an AI venture capital agent with training from the Animoca Brands investment and research teams. HeyAni plans to launch a platform that will allow anyone to submit their business proposals or inquiries about tokens in order to receive instant feedback.