If you haven't heard of Animoca Brands over the last year or so, you are missing out. The Hong Kong-based outfit has quietly become one of the most active participants in a world that more and more stakeholders believe is the next iteration of the web.
The Fan Controlled Football League, a sports league where fans vote on real-time decisions for their team, announced $40 million in Series A funding. The outfit got its start by developing games for phones and tablets, and has since invested in more than 150 other outfits.
It was a perfect match. It appears to have been love at first sight for Animoca founder Yat Siu. Siu was interested in a game that was being worked on by the venture studio Axiom Zen, and Animoca was about to acquire Fuel powered, which shared an office with the studio. He learned of it from Mikhael Naayem, the founder of Fuel powered.
Animoca struck a deal to publish "CryptoKitties" in the early part of the year. It took off in such a big way that Naayem and Gharegozlou joined forces to form Dapper Labs, and Animoca became its earliest backers.
Animoca has been on a tear. Sky Mavis, the developer of global sensation "AxieInfinity," which closed on roughly $150 million in funding back in October at a $3 billion valuation, and the popular metaverse startup are included in its ballooning portfolio. As of last week, the smallest chunk of land users could buy was more than $11k.
OpenSea lands a monster $13.3 billion valuation in a new raise.
Animoca got an early stake in OpenSea, the biggest marketplace for NFTs currently and valued at $13.3 billion.
Animoca and the Bored Apes Yacht Club are working together to create a Bored Apes-themed game this year.
He told Siu that Animoca was worth around $16 billion as of late November, after Animoca was valued at $2.2 billion in a $65 million funding round.
The syndicate bought up publicly traded shares. Siu says that Animoca was delisted in March of 2020 because it didn't like the fact that they were dealing with cryptocurrencies. It is an unlisted public company. It can communicate with its shareholders via its website and mailing lists, and it can sell its shares privately to other individuals. You just have to know that you own some.
The company's assets include the stakes in OpenSea and Dapper Labs. Siu said that balance sheet items are what they call them, and that they accrue to the value of the equity of Animoca.
The movie 'Bored Apes' wants to go to the moon.
Animoca has had its share of speed bumps. Users lost $18.7 million worth of NFTs and the price of the subsidiary's token plummeted after a security breach.
This brave new world has its own drawbacks.
Siu, Animoca's group executive chairman and managing director, is very much a believer in web3 and doesn't put much stock in recent criticisms to surface.
Box CEO asked if truly decentralized organizations that rely on the input of their communities will be able to innovate if they are always busy trying to build consensus.
Siu said that people will know what is best for them when there is something to compare against.
We talked about how Animoca is thinking about partnerships. He said that the company continues to acquire game studios in order to provide digital property rights to the end users. He said that the outfit is drawn to infrastructure that can help develop and grow the network effects of digital properties.
Layer 1 and Layer 2 are what that means.
Solana, a platform that is followed by top investors, says it is much faster than ether.
It is part of Animoca's belief that cross chains are necessary for fast-growing outfits to keep growing.
We want to encourage companies when they launch their gaming assets or NFTs, but they should also consider putting it on Flow, which is the blockchain designed by Dapper Labs. They should also put it on HBAR. The idea is to encourage people to roll out their assets on as many platforms as possible, in as many protocols as possible, because independence is really important to us. We view chains in a similar way to countries. If you can only launch a product in one place, then you are limited to the culture and potential of that particular place.
You can hear the whole thing from that conversation with Siu, who grew up in Austria and went on to sell his first startup to a fish oil company. We talked about Jack Dorsey's thoughts about web3 and how the business world in Hong Kong is changing as China realigns the lines.
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