Animoca Brands, the company behind The Sandbox Metaverse, has raised $75 million in funding, bringing the company’s valuation to $5.9 billion.
The company behind The Sandbox Metaverse, Animoca Brands, continues its quest to attract significant investments, its eyes set on new acquisitions in the play-to-earn and Metaverse industries. On Tuesday, the company announced that it closed another round of strategic funding again, giving Animoca Brands additional resources to expand its acquisition targets.
The blockchain gaming and venture studio said it closed a $75.32 million funding round, bringing the company’s total valuation to $5.9 billion. The funding infusion is the second tranche of a funding round that started in January, where Animoca Brands raised almost $360 million and upped the company’s value to $5.5 billion.
January’s funding round actually multiplied the company’s value by two, doubling it in less than three months. In October last year, Animoca Brands was valued at $2.2 billion after it raised $65 million in funds.
According to the company, the funding round started in January was extended to accommodate due diligence processes.
Animoca Brands’ Backers
Venture giants Sequoia China, ParaFi Capital, Winklevoss Capital, and 10T Holdings supported January’s funding round. This time around, existing investors Liberty City Ventures, 19T, Alpha Wave Ventures, SG Spring Limited Partnership Fund, Kingsway Capital, and others backed the funding.
Animoca Brands will use the new capital to fund strategic acquisitions, product development, and intellectual property (IP) licenses, per the company’s announcement. It needs the aforementioned as it looks to move ahead with the open Metaverse concept.
The company also intimated its plans to continue with its utilization of blockchain technology, including NFTs, decentralized finance, and GameFi, in its efforts to promote digital property rights.
Animoca Brands’ Optimism Flourishes
The optimism of Animoca Brands flourishes despite the current bear market in digital assets. Proof of this is the active expansion of its portfolio in 2022.
As of this time of writing, the company’s portfolio includes over 150 NFT-related projects. It includes OpenSea, the largest NFT trading platform, and Dapper Labs, the company behind the NBA Top Shot NFT project.
Animoca Brands also invested in Sky Mavis, the developer of the highly-popular Axie Infinity NFT game. Incidentally, sales for Axie Infinity NFTs soared after it announced that it is transitioning to a play-and-earn rewards model.
As mentioned in the get-go, Animoca Brands also holds a majority stake in The Sandbox Metaverse. On its own, The Sandbox has played a significant role in furthering the still-evolving Metaverse space. Presently, The Sandbox has a total market capitalization of $1.4 billion. According to CoinMarket Cap, it is the second-largest Metaverse project behind Decentraland.
Among The Sandbox’s latest undertakings is its collaboration with American men’s lifestyle and entertainment brand Playboy. Playboy will be launching the Playboy MetaMansion in The Sandbox, a virtual take on the legendary Playboy Mansion, which will be a gaming and social hub. Playboy will also release NFTs related to the MetaMansion.
In April, Animoca Brands bought a considerable stake in Be Media, an Australian digital marketing firm. It is speculated that the move was designed to expand the venture studio’s partnerships with the local blockchain industry. The same month, the company also purchased two video game publishers, Eden Games and Darewise Entertainment.
One thing is evident in Animoca Brands’ latest funding round. Despite the unquestionable volatility and current downward spiral of the digital asset market, there is still hope for well-established firms in the industry. Proof of that is that funding still finds its way to these firms, bear market notwithstanding.
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