Hong Kong – Game software and venture capital company Animoca Brands Corporation Limited, a company advancing digital property rights for gaming and the open metaverse, has announced that it has received binding commitments for a funding round totaling US$20m to accelerate its ‘Mocaverse’ project.
Mocaverse is one of the company’s marquee projects that is building on Web3-native tooling to empower products in the gaming, culture, and entertainment verticals.
With Mocaverse, users will be allowed to create their own digital identity, accrue reputation, earn and spend loyalty points, and use their digital identity to access the Mocaverse ecosystem, seeded by Animoca Brands’ 450+ portfolio companies and partner network with over 700 million addressable users.
The new capital secured by Animoca Brands will be used to advance the Mocaverse project, including product development, facilitating Web3 adoption, and securing partnerships to expand the gaming, culture, and entertainment ecosystems of the company’s expanded portfolio of investments in Web3 companies and projects.
Among the plans for Mocaverse is the soon-to-launch Moca ID, a non-transferrable NFT collection designed to enable users to craft their on-chain identities and participate in the Mocaverse ecosystem.
Moca ID holders will gain exclusive access to Mocaverse ecosystem experiences and will have the unique opportunity to earn loyalty points through active engagement. These loyalty points will power a permissionless and interoperable loyalty system that will be progressively decentralised to enable third-party adoption and integration of Moca ID, with the aim of advancing the accessibility and growth of Web3.
Animoca Brands was able to raise US$20m or approximately A$31.3m via the issue of new ordinary shares at a price per share of A$4.50. As part of the raise, the company has also granted the investors in the round a free-attaching utility token warrant on a 1:1 dollar basis.
The funding round was led by CMCC Global, with other investors including Kingsway Capital, Liberty City Ventures, GameFi Ventures, Aleksander Larsen (founder of Sky Mavis), Gabby Dizon (founder of Yield Guild Games), institutional investors at Koda Capital, and others. Yat Siu, the executive chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands, also participated in the round.
CMCC Global is one of Asia’s first venture capital companies focused solely on blockchain and Web3 investments. As a pioneer investor in the space, CMCC Global has an enviable record of investing early in leading projects such as Ethereum (ETH) at US$7, Solana (SOL) at US$0.20 and Cosmos (ATOM) at US$0.10.
Speaking on the funding raise, Yat Siu commented, “We are deeply honoured by investors’ support for Animoca Brands and its vision of decentralisation. The ongoing evolution of the Internet involves a shift from hierarchical power structures to autonomous ones, and the DAO-based approach of Mocaverse ensures that its community will be focused on driving innovation and collaboration across the broader Animoca Brands ecosystem.”
He added, “In addition to empowering users to participate in a vibrant community that generates new economic opportunities, Mocaverse will also serve as the digital identity, reputation, and loyalty system for other decentralised organisations.”
Meanwhile, Martin Baumann, co-founder of CMCC Global, said, “Having built a long-term relationship with Animoca Brands, we are thrilled to be leading this first round of funding into Mocaverse. The project will unify the unique portfolio of companies within the Animoca Brands umbrella and will become a portal for hundreds of millions of new users to access Web3 and metaverse ecosystems. At CMCC Global, we look to support innovative founders that are pushing the boundaries of our industry. Yat Siu has proved time and again his ability to lead Web3 in creative new directions, and we are excited to be supporting him and the Animoca Brands team once again as they venture into the Mocaverse.”
