Metaverse gaming developer Animoca Brands raises $110 million

Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based gaming developer, has raised $110 million from investors, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

It said the company issued convertible notes in a funding round that valued it at around $5.6 billion.

The statement said existing investors are also contributing to the new investors, including Singapore-based Temasek, global venture capital firm GGV Capital and China-focused asset manager Boyu Capital.

Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu said in a statement that they will be a special strategic round of fundraising. Animoca Brands invested more than 340 companies to build its vision of a metaverse based on the use of a non-fungible token, NFTs, a type of speculators that have piled in to digital assets, and the metaverse became a tech buzzword last year. Sales volumes have dropped sharply in recent months as investors have turned more risk-averse, the price of cryptocurrencies has fallen and the much hyped metaverse has shown few signs of materialising.

A spokesman for Animoca Brands played down the impact of the winter industry lingo for a spell of depressed prices, which has wiped out around $1 trillion of the criptocurrency market this year, according to CoinGecko data.

The statement said that the funds raised will be used to make more acquisitions and investments, as well as product development and securing intellectual property licenses.

We take a long-term view, and note that blockchain gaming has been relatively less affected by the chill than some other sectors, the spokesperson said.

According to market trackerCryptoSlam, Axie Infinity, backed by Animoca Brands, has seen a decline in monthly sales volume, buyer numbers and average sale prices since January.

Animoca Brands raised $75 million in July and $360 million in January.