Animoca

Basics

• Aka Animoca Brands
• A blockchain and gaming investment powerhouse based in Hong Kong, began investing in crypto in February 2017.

Projects

Axie Infinity

• One of the inaugural validators of Ronin (24-12-2021).

Investments

• Animoca Brands’ 2022 investments included companies such as Neptune Mutual, Balthazar, Metaplex Foundation, Burnt Finance, Ancient8, TRLab, Kyoko, Pixels and many others. Its investments are concentrated in the gaming sector, which makes up 37% of its 443 investments (12-2024) according to Messari. The concentration of their top-four sector investments was reduced from 63% before 2023 → 48% in 2024.
• 1Animoca Brands will aim to raise $1 billion for its metaverse investing fund in the early part of 2023, softening previous ambitions to raise as much as $2 billion.
• Has a portfolio of over 380 Web3 projects like Axie Infinity, The Sandbox (of which they own the developer company), OpenSea and Dapper Labs (5-12-2022).
• 0G Labs; took part in a round in 2024.
• BeraChain; part of the Series B $100M (12-4-2024).
• Puffer; part of the $18M Series A (16-4-2024).
• Lava; invested in a SAFT of Lava Foundation (7-5-2024).
• Monad Labs; took part in a round in 2024.
• Redacted; part of their $20M raise for Web3 gaming (26-6-2024).
• The Sandbox; participated again in funding, this time buying convertible debt (7-6-2024).
• Shiba Inu's Treat blockchain; part of its $12M raise (23-4-2024).
• Shima Capital; they got some of their seed money for their first $200M fund from here (17-8-2022).
• Animoca Brands is TON blockchain’s largest validator (30-11-2023) and will henceforth “provide funding, research, and an analytics platform.
• WAX; Animoca Brands announced a partnership with Exposition Park Holdings SEZC(16-1-2019) "Animoca Brands will introduce user-generated items for its game The Sandbox on to the WAX platform. Under the Agreement, WAX and Animoca Brands are initiating a mutual exchange of value totaling US$250,000, whereby Animoca Brands will exchange common shares of its stock for the equivalent value in WAX tokens. The swapped shares and tokens will be subject to a 24-month escrow period." As of 4-2023, there is no sign of WAX and The Sandbox having any relationship.
• Zeus Network; part of the $8M funding round (3-4-2024).

Team, Funding and Partners

• Yat Siu; co-founder and executive chairman
• The firm has continued to grow, raising its valuation to $5.9 billion during 2022.
• From Decrypt (12-11-2020):

"Atari has announced partnerships with other online games and services that plan to implement the Atari Token, providing further opportunities to make use of it.

Atari has also partnered with Animoca Brands, a major player in crypto games thanks to titles like The Sandbox and F1 Delta Time, to develop blockchain-powered versions of classic Atari games like Asteroids and Centipede. These games will be playable on the VCS."