Crypto gaming firm Animoca Brands hits $5.5 bln valuation after $75 mln fundraise

Sunwah Kingsway Capital Holdings

12/07/2022 13:00

By Elizabeth Howcroft
    LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - Blockchain game developer
Animoca Brands has raised $75.3 million following a fundraising
drive that now values the firm at A$8.2 billion ($5.5 billion)
even as the market reels from a collapse in cryptocurrency
prices.
    Animoca Brands - an Australian company based in Hong Kong -
said the raise was the second part of a $360 million round in
January.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2TY2YE
    The latest raise, which was supported by investors including
Liberty City Ventures and Kingsway Capital, was delayed because
some investors were worried by the collapse of TerraUSD and its
impact on cryptocurrency markets, Animoca's co-founder Yat Siu
said.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2X30RZ
    Top cryptocurrency bitcoin fell 57% in the first half of
2022 as investors ditched riskier assets. Investors fear
contagion across crypto markets as some crypto lenders have
frozen customer withdrawals and crypto hedge fund Three Arrows
Capital entered liquidation last month.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2Y00N5 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2YI2G8
    Animoca Brands has invested in more than 340 companies to
build its vision of a "metaverse" based around blockchain
technology, in which virtual assets can be bought and sold in
the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) using cryptocurrencies.
    The cryptocurrencies and NFTs used in blockchain-based
virtual world games surged in 2021 as speculators piled in to
digital assets and the metaverse became a tech buzzword. But the
tokens have dropped so far this year as this metaverse has yet
to be widely adopted. NFT sales volumes fell sharply last month.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2Y42NY
    "Our investors have a very long view," said Siu, who
compares the development of a crypto-based metaverse to the
adoption of the internet or mobile phones.
    Siu said Animoca's investors see the metaverse as "Web3" - a
new stage in the internet's development.
    "If that's true then this is a blip – a meaningful blip in
terms of circumstance – but it's not going to affect the future
5-10 years along the road."
    In its most recent financial statement in April https://www.animocabrands.com/animoca-brands-investor-update-for-the-period-ended-on-30-april-2022
 Animoca, which is also backed by Sequoia China and Coinbase
Ventures, said its portfolio of investments was worth $1.5
billion while its reserves of digital assets such as
game-related cryptocurrencies and NFTs were worth $4.2 billion.

($1 = 1.4863 Australian dollars)

 (Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft, editing by Sinead Cruise and
David Evans)
 ((Elizabeth.Howcroft@thomsonreuters.com; +44 02075427104;))