HK firm Animoca Brands backs Thai gaming platform GuildFi

Online platform GuildFi has raised US$6 million in a seed round which was co-led by DeFiance Capital and Hashed, as well as a number of brands including Hong Kong's Animoca Brands. With this financing round, GuildFi said it will be evolving into an interconnected ecosystem and features, including GuildFi ID, game discovery, scholarship portal, GameFi tools, Proof-of-Play rewards, and Metadrop Launchpad. With the investment, GuildFi will collaborate with game creators globally to attract players while supporting them through in-game asset investment and campaign collaboration, to ensure successful launches and healthy growth

The company also hopes to take gaming guilds "to the next level by developing a Web3 infrastructure to connect games, NFTs, and communities", it said. It also wants to maximise players’ lifetime benefits and enable interoperability across the metaverse. Web3 applications either run on blockchains, decentralised networks of many peer-to-peer servers, or a combination of the two. Other businesses also supported GuildFi, including Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Dapper Labs, Play Ventures, Coin98 Ventures and SkyVision Capital.

"GuildFi is led by a team with a passion for gaming and extensive experience in building crypto communities. Their unparalleled strengths in educating users and community building are demonstrated in their ability to build the largest network of influencers in Thailand as well as Asia," said Arthur Cheong, founding partner of DeFiance Capital. He added, "We believe they have the necessary building blocks to achieve this ambitious goal of connecting gaming communities and becoming an all-in-one platform serving the needs of players, games, and guilds.

According to the company, GuildFi is a platform that empowers all gaming communities and creates interoperability across the Metaverse, solving the discovery and access problems for players while enhancing their performance and maximising their rewards.

“We foresee that the next-generation game platform will be underpinned by a combination of play-to-earn gaming model and interoperable in-game assets. Hashed strongly believes the new paradigm for the gaming industry will be decentralised platforms. The more authority games give to the players, the more successful the game will be. In that respect, GuildFi has a very strong potential to solidify its position as a new gaming platform,” said Ethan Kyuntae Kim, co-founder and partner of Hashed.

Meanwhile, Animoca Brands recently closed a capital raise for US$65 million. Animoca Brands brings digital property rights to online users, primarily for consumer video game players and the metaverse, through the use of blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). According to the company, these technologies enable the true digital ownership of users’ virtual assets and data, and offer various play-to-earn capabilities, asset interoperability, and DeFi/GameFi opportunities. 

Investors in the round included Liberty City Ventures, Ubisoft Entertainment, Sequoia China, Dragonfly Capital, Com2uS, Kingsway Capital, 10T Holdings, Token Bay Capital, Smile Group, Tess Ventures, MSA Capital, Octava Fund, Adit Ventures, Summer Capital, Sigitech Holdings, Black Anthem Ltd, Mirana Corp, and Justin Sun.  The new capital will be used to fund strategic investments and acquisitions, product development, and licenses for popular intellectual properties.

In the last few years, Animoca Brands has established itself as one of the world’s leading technology groups in blockchain and gaming by spearheading and innovating decentralised in-game rewards and monetisation in video games.  Earlier in the year, Animoca Brands raised US$138.88 million on the strength of its plan to deliver digital property rights via NFTs.  Animoca Brands and subsidiaries offer a broad portfolio of game products, both centralised and decentralised, branded and original, with coverage across most primary platforms including mobile devices, game consoles, PC, web, and blockchain. Products include games ranging from hyper-casual to hardcore, as well as collectibles, utility tokens, esports titles, and more. 

Some of the company’s major blockchain game projects include REVV Racing, F1 Delta Time, MotoGP Ignition, and Formula E: High Voltage in the REVV token ecosystem, as well as The Sandbox and its associated utility token SAND, and the GAMEE, TOWER, and LMT tokens. 

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