The Sandbox announces $20M funding at $1B valuation cap to expand creator economy in open metaverse
Animoca Brands’ subsidiary building a decentralized virtual world where culture meets gaming; surpasses 1,000 user-generated experiences and 5.7 million members
6 June 2024 - Animoca Brands Corporation Limited (“Animoca Brands”), the company advancing digital property rights for the open metaverse, and its subsidiary Bacasable Global Limited, operator of The Sandbox, a leading user-generated content (UGC) metaverse platform, announced today that The Sandbox has raised US$20 million of convertible promissory notes with a US$1 billion valuation cap. The strategic funding was led by Kingsway Capital and Animoca Brands with participation by LG Tech Ventures and True Global Ventures. Noteholders have the ability to convert into equity of Bacasable Global Limited at the same terms as existing preference shares.
Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, said: “We are deeply honoured by the continuing commitment to the vision of The Sandbox, and we’re incredibly excited about the future of composable user-generated content games. McKinsey estimated that by 2030 the metaverse could add $5 trillion to the global economy; today, games like Minecraft and Roblox are some of the most popular titles in the world, but they do not provide their users with digital property rights. The Sandbox represents the evolution of UGC games for the age of digital ownership.”
The new funding will be used to continue advancing The Sandbox’s vision of a decentralized virtual world where culture meets gaming and where the community is able to participate actively in, and derive benefit from, the growth of the whole ecosystem.
As part of this vision, The Sandbox will continue to improve earning opportunities for creators on its platform, including by: updating its Game Maker and VoxEdit 3D editor tools; introducing new social interactions and abilities for avatars; and expanding gameplay possibilities via its new multiplayer rules system, expected to launch in Beta later this year and to the public in 2025. Additionally, The Sandbox is developing a version of its decentralized metaverse for mobile devices, expected to launch in 2025.
The Sandbox, which opened to the public in its Alpha version in November 2023, recently celebrated the milestone of 1,000 user-generated experiences live-published on its virtual map, with over 5.7 million users accounts connected to crypto wallets.
The Sandbox has established itself as one of the leading mainstream applications onboarding new users to Web3, leveraging the power of fandom to drive new audiences to explore the metaverse. It has over 400 partnerships with global brands, including Lionsgate, Hellboy, Magnificent Century, Habbo, Space Invaders in Shibuya109, Notorious BIG, Warner Music, Ubisoft, Snoop Dogg, Gucci and hundreds of others. Over one hundred experiences featuring global brands are currently in production and planned for launch throughout 2024.
In the last 12 months, over 330,000 unique creators have downloaded The Sandbox’s no-code Game Maker, and The Sandbox is now ramping up its efforts to attract first-time creators through multiple initiatives including education efforts, bootcamps, and game jams.
To date, over 60,000 avatar NFTs have been sold and used to play in the virtual world of The Sandbox, including NFTs from 19 official branded collections such as Hellboy, Magnificent Century, Rabbids, MadBalls, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Paris Hilton, Captain Tsubasa, Maradona, Elvis Presley, Cut The Rope, Habbo Hotel, Agoria, and others.
Arthur Madrid, CEO and co-founder of The Sandbox, said: “The open metaverse empowers anyone to express themselves while discovering and engaging with the culture of millions of other users. Our mission at The Sandbox is to develop creative tools and technologies that bring fairness and new opportunities for all types of creators in the open metaverse in all aspects of culture, particularly games, music, fashion, art, sports, and entertainment.”
Sebastien Borget, COO and co-founder of The Sandbox, said: “We’re excited to welcome new strategic partners who support our vision to develop the most accessible and inclusive platform that makes available the opportunities of Web3 to a global mainstream audience, and where brands and communities join hands to co-create the future of gaming and entertainment. The Sandbox is a proud believer in the power of the metaverse to shape our digital tomorrow to be collaborative, fair, and open.”
Anshul Agarwa, managing director at LG Technology Ventures, said: “Our mission at LG Tech Ventures is to bolster the visionaries who are shaping emerging trends, including Web3 adoption and consumer entertainment. The Sandbox’s distinctive approach to Web3 and gaming can unlock transformative opportunities for the global creators economy.”
Over the last six months, The Sandbox has passed various notable milestones, including: enabling all of its more than 25,000 virtual real estate owners to publish their LAND experiences to the public; opening its Marketplace on Polygon’s L2, allowing creators to mint and sell their digital assets; and developing a thriving economy in which users have created more than 11,000 unique digital assets that have been minted and sold over half a million times.
The Sandbox ecosystem now boasts over 250 Trusted Partners, who are persons and agencies trained and certified by The Sandbox to assist brands and IP holders to build metaverse experiences for their fans. The number of Trusted Partners is expected to continue to grow as The Sandbox explores new markets in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Africa, among others.
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About The Sandbox
The Sandbox, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, 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. The Sandbox leverages Web3 technologies to fully enable end-user creation and creator economies, disrupting existing platforms by providing both players and creators with true ownership of their assets, creations, and rewards in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Over 400 partners have joined The Sandbox, including Warner Music Group, Gucci, Ubisoft, Paris Hilton, The Walking Dead, Snoop Dogg, Lacoste, Steve Aoki, The Smurfs, and many more. For more information, please visit www.sandbox.game and follow the regular updates on X (Twitter), Medium, and Discord.
About Animoca Brands
Animoca Brands (ACN: 122 921 813), a Deloitte Tech Fast winner, a Fortune Crypto 40 company, and one of the Financial Times’ High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2023, is a Web3 leader that leverages blockchain to deliver digital property rights to consumers around the world to help to establish the open metaverse. The company develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including original games such as The Sandbox, PHANTOM GALAXIES™, Life Beyond, and Crazy Defense Heroes, and products utilizing popular intellectual properties from the worlds of sports and entertainment, such as The Walking Dead, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Formula E. It has multiple subsidiaries, including The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, GAMEE, nWay, Pixowl, Forj, Lympo, Animoca Brands Japan, Grease Monkey Games, Eden Games, Darewise Entertainment, Notre Game, TinyTap, SPORTPASS, PIXELYNX, WePlay Media, Gryfyn, and Azarus. Animoca Brands is one of the most active investors in Web3, with a portfolio of over 400 Web3 investments, both directly and through Animoca Ventures, including Yuga Labs, Axie Infinity, Polygon, Consensys, Magic Eden, Fireblocks, OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Yield Guild Games, and many more. For more information visit www.animocabrands.com or follow on X (Twitter), YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok.
Contact:
Animoca Brands: press@animocabrands.com
