Animoca Brands: The Company Who Jumped on NFTs Early

Highlights

• Animoca develops and publishes a wide variety of products including the REVV token and SAND token from the Metaverse platform, The Sandbox, along with original games Crazy Kings and Crazy Defense Heroes
• On January 19, 2022, Animoca Brands announced it had raised around US$360 million in fresh funding at a valuation of more than US$5 billion
• Australian Securities Exchange delisted Animoca Brands in March 2020 because, according to founder, Yat Siu, “it didn’t like the fact that we were dealing with crypto”

Today, NFTs are the “it” thing to purchase. Not only do they represent “clout” (a term used, meaning online status), but they’re also investments, some of which have provided remarkable returns.

This, of course means, there are no shortage of investors in the crypto market who wish they would have invested in the NFT space, including blockchain gaming prior to these things really exploding in popularity last year.

Well, one such company did, in fact, see the potential of NFTs as well as blockchain gaming way before they became the cool thing.

Animoca Brands saw the potential offered by blockchain and NFTs as early as 2017 through CryptoKitties, which is an online game where players collect NFTs represented by digital cats. Animoca became shareholders of the game’s studio, Dapper Labs in 2018.

Since then, further investment in the NFT space has pushed Animoca Brands to new heights with a recent evaluation of over US$5 billion.

It seems for this small start up, the sky’s the limit.

Animoca Brands: The Company Who Jumped on NFTs Early

What is Animoca Brands?

Animoca Brands is a private Hong Kong-based software and venture capital company focused on digital entertainment, blockchain, gamification, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Animoca develops and publishes a wide variety of products including the REVV token and SAND token from the Metaverse platform, The Sandbox, along with original games Crazy Kings and Crazy Defense Heroes.

It was founded in 2014 by Hong Kong entrepreneur, Yat Siu, who had previously founded Cybercity, first local internet and email provider, in 1996.

Image source: © Ipopba | Megapixl.com

Making Big Moves

On January 19, 2022, Animoca Brands announced it had raised around US$360 million in fresh funding at a valuation of more than US$5 billion.

This announcement has raised several eyebrows in the NFT and metaverse gaming industry, given that just four months ago the company was given a US$2.2 billion evaluation. What’s even more impressive is that just last July, the company was valued at US$1 billion.

Including the US$360 million raised on January 19, the total amount raised stands at an estimated US$604 million, according to Crunchbase Data.

A spokesperson for Animoca announced, the the issue of 111,173,515 new shares as a result of the capital raised, which investors bought at US$3.24 per share.

Animoca Brands’ ASX Delisting

Australian Securities Exchange delisted Animoca Brands in March 2020 because, according to founder, Yat Siu, “it didn’t like the fact that we were dealing with crypto”, as reported in Media.

Indeed Australia’s relationship with crypto and blockchain related products has been shaky, although overall it seems to be open to the idea of incorporating this relatively new technology with its existing economy, albeit with government regulation, the finer details of which are being worked on as we speak and should be finalised later this year.

The Bottom Line

As Siu pointed out recently in an interview with Forbes, the real value in companies like The Sandbox or Axie Infinity (both of which are included on Animoca Brands’ portfolio), are bounded by the fact that these are spaces within the metaverse – an online space which is only just beginning to take form.

The truth is, right at this moment, it’s difficult to tell just how significant the metaverse will be in the future.