Animoca Brands raises over US$75 million to advance vision of open metaverse
12 July 2022 -- Animoca Brands, the company advancing digital property rights for gaming and the open metaverse, today announced that it has completed a capital raise of US$75.32 million (approximately A$104.57 million). The current raise is the second tranche of the funding previously announced on 18 January 2022, which was extended to accommodate due diligence processes.
Investors in the current tranche 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 will use the new capital to continue to fund strategic acquisitions, investments, and product development, secure licenses for popular intellectual properties, and advance the open metaverse, including through its efforts to promote digital property rights for online users.
Using technologies including blockchain and NFTs, Animoca Brands is working to deliver true digital ownership of users’ virtual assets and data, enabling various DeFi and GameFi opportunities (including play-and-earn), asset interoperability, and an open framework that can lead to greater equitability for all participants in the open metaverse.
The company has established itself as one of the world’s leading technology groups in blockchain and gaming by spearheading and innovating decentralized in-game rewards and monetization in video games for the emerging open metaverse.
Management commentary
Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, commented: “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. We are deeply honoured to continue to enjoy strong support from investors as we work to solidify the leadership position of Animoca Brands in the Web3 industry and in the field of true digital ownership.”
Emil Woods, managing partner of Liberty City Ventures, commented: “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. We are proud to support Animoca Brands, a highly talented team of visionaries and builders at the forefront of this movement to embrace and fulfil the promise of Web3.”
Manuel Stotz, the founder and CEO 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."
Details of raise
Animoca Brands has executed Subscription Agreements with sophisticated and professional investors to raise a total of US$75.32 million (approximately A$104.57 million) at a subscription price of A$4.50 per share, for a total of 23,237,058 new shares. Following this raise, Animoca Brands will have a total of 1,836,142,334 fully paid ordinary shares on issue.
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About Animoca Brands
Animoca Brands, a Deloitte Tech Fast winner and ranked in the Financial Times list of High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2021, is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gamification that is working to advance digital property rights and contribute to the establishment of the open metaverse. The company develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilizing popular intellectual properties including Disney, WWE, Snoop Dogg, The Walking Dead, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Formula E. It has multiple subsidiaries, including The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, GAMEE, nWay, Pixowl, Forj, Lympo, Grease Monkey Games, Eden Games, Darewise, Notre Game, and TinyTap. Animoca Brands has a growing portfolio of more than 340 investments, including Colossal, Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Yield Guild Games, Harmony, Alien Worlds, Star Atlas, and others. For more information visit www.animocabrands.com or follow on Twitter or Facebook.
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