Animoca Brands, an NFT and metaverse company, more than doubled its valuation to $5B with a $359M funding round. The capital injection was led by Liberty City Ventures and included participants like Soros Fund Management, Winklevoss, Mirae Asset, Sequoia China, Kingsway, Pacific Century Group, and C Ventures. More: - The $5B valuation is a big step up from $2.2B the company was worth following a $65M funding round in October.
- The figure is even more impressive given that Animoca was valued at $1B as recently as July.
- Animoca currently operates as an unlisted public company.
- It was previously traded on the Australian Securities Exchange and delisted in early 2020 due to the conflicts over the company’s main business being in crypto, founder Yat Siu told TechCrunch.
- The latest round saw the sale of 111,173,515 new shares priced at $3.24 per share. The firm’s 2,500 investors are able to sell their stock in private secondary sales.
- Animoca manages a portfolio of game products, both centralized and decentralized.
- Coverage extends across most platforms, including mobile devices, game consoles, PC, web, and blockchain.
- Siu claims that the holdings are worth $16B altogether, though that figure is purely hypothetical as Animoca has yet to try to exit any of its investments.
- The company also invests actively. It recently partnered with Binance Smart Chain on a $200M fund to back early-stage GameFi startups.
| |
The current reaction of public markets to COVID-19 is a suspension of disbelief, according to Bradley Tusk of Tusk Ventures. If the coming year returns them to normalcy, many valuations will have to come back to reality. Moreover, if public markets face a correction, private equity will be left holding the bag, said Tusk. More: - Mark Sherman of Telstra Ventures offered Crunchbase a more optimistic picture. He believes that the world is only heading to more digitization, which supports strong valuations for tech companies.
- At the same time, he conceded that 2022 could be a choppy year given COVID, inflation, and several geopolitical issues.
- One of the big questions is how the big PE firms such as Tiger Global will react to a substantial correction.
- While Tiger has a hands-off approach to its 350 investments in the last year, making it easier to jump ship, other firms are more involved with their portfolio.
- Still, Don Butler, managing director at Thomvest Ventures, thinks that the commoditization of VC returns these firms ushered in is not going anywhere, irrespective of what happens in the next months.
- More boutique VC firms with a strong value-add proposition for their portfolio companies could weather any possible storm more robustly, as their niche approach allows them to stand out.
- Tusk opined that generalist and mid-sized firms will probably suffer the most at the hands of a correction.
| |
 A message from LOHIKA Learn Why Web3 Matters to Your Business. Web3 is the next evolution of the Internet. If Web 2.0 was about user-generated content and social media platforms, Web3 is about decentralized services powered by the blockchain. Smart contracts and NFTs are Web3 technologies that run on the blockchain. Lohika is hosting an online event with our friends from Refresh Miami. We gathered a panel of Web3 experts that will explain what blockchain, smart contracts and NFTs are, then discuss related business opportunities in the present and future. The panel: Join us on January 26, 2022 at 10am PT / 1pm ET. Register Here
| |
Fearless Fund, an investment house focusing on early-stage startups founded by women of color, closed its $25M first fund. Not inclined to lose their momentum, the firm’s founders are already shopping around their second vehicle, which they expect to top $100M. More: - Founded in 2019 by Ayana Parsons and Arian Simone, the firm’s first vehicle took a solid two years to close.
- Its LPs include MasterCard, Bank of America, Ally Bank, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, and others.
- Parsons and Simone expect to have to limit their LP count for their second fund.
- The heightened interest in their investment strategy comes as studies find that startups founded by Black or Latina women have a much lower rate of failure than the average company.
- Black or Latina women in 2018 had a fail rate of 27%, compared to the national 40% average, per the 2018 ProjectDiane report.
- Simultaneously, the average seed round for such companies sits at around $125,000, a fraction of the general average of $2.5B.
- The first six months of 2021 saw only .34% of total funding funneled to such companies.
- There is an upside to this for investors such as Parsons and Simone: Given the abysmal rates of investment for startups founded by women of color, the pipeline of talent they have access to is overflowing.
- Fearless already has 20 investments in companies across the U.S., including CapWay, a next-generation mobile banking company, to Range Beauty, a beauty product manufacturer.
| |
Istanbul's Dream Games raised a whopping $255M Series C at a $2.75B valuation. The news comes just half a year after the company raised $155M at a $1B valuation led by Index and Makers Fund. More: - Today's round was also led by Index Ventures, with participation from Makers Fund, IVP, and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Kora, and Balderton Capital.
- Dream Games' main draw for investors is its success with Royal Match, which is currently one of the highest-grossing mobile games on the market.
- Co-founder and CEO Soner Aydemir says that the studio will double down on its franchise and expects to expand to other games later.
What's up in Instanbul? - The Turkish capital's gaming scene is truly taking off.
- Istanbul-based competitor Spyke announced a $55M seed round just yesterday.
- A Crunchbase search indicated that the city's gaming startups raised a solid $450M in the last 12 months.
- The scene has its origin in Peak Games, a gaming startup that was acquired by Zynga in 2020 for $1.8B. Both Spyke and Dream Games were founded by former Peak senior members or founders.
| |
 A message from KINTONE Self-help books usually tell you you’re the problem. If only you were less distracted, more motivated, better organized–the suggestions for workplace self-improvement are endless. But what if it’s not you? What if it’s your software that’s secretly to blame? Download our free eBook, The Workflow Trap, to learn why your software might be getting in the way of your best work. We’ll show you: - Why improving the way you work isn’t a “you” problem but a “tools” problem
- Why your current workflows aren’t setting you up for success
- How to build a plan to improve your workflows
Download the eBook
| |
 Today's Funding 💸 Adtech/Martech - Pyxis One (California), contextual codeless AI infrastructure for marketing optimization: $100M C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, participation from General Atlantic, Celesta Capital, Premji Invest, Chiratae Ventures.
Agtech - Botanical Solutions (Davis, Calif.), advanced botanical materials: $6.1M A led by Otter Capital, participation from Inversiones el Coigue and Inversiones Eurocel, et al.
- Aigen (Kirkland, Wash.), robots to make agriculture carbon negative:...
Want to read about all of today's funding in one place? The funding roundup is only available to free users on Mondays and Fridays. Upgrade to Inside VC Premium for either $10/month, or $100 billed annually, to receive the full list in every issue! For a limited time, we are offering a 14-day free trial. Click here to sign up! | | | |
Quick Hits - The #1 play-to-earn blockchain game is free to get started. Sign up for Splinterlands now to get daily airdrops and earn tokens for every win.*
- Credo Technology Group, provider of secured, high-speed connectivity solutions, filed for a $345M IPO at a $1.8B valuation. The company will sell 28.8 million shares priced at $10-$12.
- Cowboy Ventures raised $125M for a new fund. The firm places bets on seed-stage companies.
- Reliance, the Indian conglomerate run by the country’s richest man, bought a majority stake in e-commerce logistics robotics provider Addverb Technologies for $132M.
- Microsoft’s deal to acquire Activision was prompted by the fallout of the gaming studio’s sexual harassment problem. CEO Bobby Kotick allegedly knew about multiple allegations for years, which drove away other potential buyers. Microsoft promised to take the problem seriously and was, in effect, the only company to make an offer.
- The PIPE count for Taiwanese startup Gogoro, which makes electric smart scooters and swappable battery infrastructure, grew to $285M from $257M. The boost came from Hero MotoCorp, which joined Foxconn (Hon Hai), GoTo, Temasek, Generation Investment Management, and others.
- Demand Gen Chat is a podcast for B2B marketers, by B2B marketers. No fluff, just the hottest takes on driving revenue from today’s marketing leaders.*
*This is a sponsored post.
| |
Upcoming events at Inside: - January 19 - Music in the Metaverse with Jonathan Gray (Encore) (Register Here)
- January 25 - Need To Know NoCoder - Leon Young (Cogniss) (Register Here)
- January 25 - Venturing in VC - Episode #4 with David Cowan (Bessemer Venture Partners) (Register Here)
- January 26 - Join Ketch & Kelley Drye's data privacy experts for a joint webinar. Privacy Priorities for 2022: Legal and Tech Developments to Track and Tackle. (Register Here) *
- January 27 - Understanding the Metaverse (Register Here)
- February 01 - Venturing in VC - Episode #5 (Register Here)
- February 03 - Blockchain Gaming & Play-to-Earn Economies (Register Here)
- February 10 - The Business of Wellness (Register Here)
- February 17 - Efficient Marketing Strategies in a Post iOS 14 World (Register Here)
- February 23 - Need to Know NoCoder: Derya Sousa (Kianda Technologies) (Register Here)
- February 24 - Alternative Investments (Register Here)
- March 03 - The $12B Appetite for Amazon Aggregators (Register Here)
- March 10 - NoCode's Impact on the Gig Economy (Register Here)
- March 23 - Need to Know NoCoder: Nichole Bestman (Bubble) (Register Here)
*This is a sponsored post.
| |
 |  | Inside VC's writer/curator Stephen currently lives in Berlin and is pursuing a Master's degree in philosophy. He otherwise spends his time trying his hand at recipes from India and Southeast Asia, escaping it all at the kickboxing gym, and offending aural sensibilities with his band. |  | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
Join our Refresh Miami panel of experts to learn what is Web3 and why it matters to your business. | |
Kintone’s customizable platform lets you manage your data, workflows and communication in one place. | |
Comments
Post a Comment