In Brief:
- Creator of Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis raised $152 million in Series B funding round
- The funding round was led by a16z with the participation of Accel and Paradigm
- The funds will fuel the growth and development of Axie Infinity and Ronin, the scaling solution for digital nations.
The creator of Axie Infinity, Vietnam-based Sky Mavis, announced it had raised a $152 million Series B round and was valued at $3 billion. The funding round was led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Accel and Paradigm also participated in the round, said Sky Mavis.
“This new round of funding will allow us to drive the play-to-earn revolution, attract incredible talent from around the world, scale our infrastructure for expected growth, and build our own distribution platforms to help game developers create Support NFT-enabled games, ” said in a blog post.
It further added that the vision we’ve always had for NFTs was that they would bring economic freedom to the players. In their view, work and play are largely artificial distinctions, and anyone who puts their heart and soul into a game should benefit from the success of it.
The game is inspired by Pokemon and Tamagotchi, in which cute animals serve as NFTs, and is currently enjoying massive popularity.
For far too long, game publishers and app stores have wielded too much power and extracted too much value. Axie is one of the first games that create ownership for the community that plays it.
Axie Infinity allows gamers to buy, breed, trade, and fight against each other with the cute Axie animals. The Ethereum blockchain in the background ensures that every Axie is unique.
The AXS token serves as an in-game currency and if players invest in it, they receive a return while playing. Investments in cryptocurrency even give them a say in the further development of Axie Infinity.
Monday, Axie Infinity’s AXS token hit an all-time high after Axie announced last week it would distribute over $60 million worth of tokens to its early adopters, and also launched a staking program for its native token, Axie Infinity shades (AXS).
