Animoca Brands Valuation Triples to Over $5 Billion

Animoca Brands Secures $360 Million in New Funding

Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based company established eight years ago with a workforce of 600, has successfully completed a new funding round, raising approximately $360 million. This investment values the firm at over $5 billion, as the company declared today.

Significant Valuation Increase

This represents a substantial increase from the $2.2 billion valuation assigned in October during a $65 million funding round. The growth is particularly noteworthy when considering Animoca’s valuation stood at $1 billion in July, following a $138 million investment.

Data from Crunchbase indicates that the company has now accumulated an estimated total of $604 million in funding.

Details of the Capital Raise

A company spokesperson clarified that the capital raise involved the issuance of 111,173,515 new shares. These shares were purchased by investors from Animoca Brands at a price equivalent to $3.24 per share, constituting a standard equity-based raise.

It is important to note that Animoca, previously listed on the Australian Securities Exchange before being delisted in early 2020 due to concerns regarding its involvement with cryptocurrency – as recently stated by founder Yat Siu – currently functions as an unlisted public company.

As Siu explained, the company’s approximately 2,500 shareholders are able to privately trade their shares with other individuals, requiring knowledge of share ownership for potential purchases.

Secondary Share Placement

The spokesperson further added that the placement of shares on the secondary market occurred due to high demand exceeding the capacity of the primary placement. However, secondary sales are not included in the company’s official financial figures for this capital raise.

Investors in the Round

Liberty City Ventures, a previous investor in Animoca, spearheaded the new round. Participation also came from a diverse group of both existing and new investors, including:

• 10T Holdings
• C Ventures
• Delta Fund
• Gemini Frontier Fund
• Gobi Partners Greater Bay Area
• Kingsway
• L2 Capital
• Mirae Asset
• Pacific Century Group
• ParaFi Capital
• Provident
• Senator Investment Group
• Sequoia China
• Smile Group
• Stable Asset Management
• Soros Fund Management
• Wildcat Capital Management
• Winklevoss Capital

Animoca’s Broad Portfolio

Animoca’s current appeal is readily apparent. As highlighted in a recent analysis, the company maintains what it describes as a “broad portfolio of game products,” encompassing both centralized and decentralized options.

This portfolio includes branded and original games, covering a wide range of platforms such as mobile devices, game consoles, PCs, the web, and blockchain, with products ranging from hyper-casual to hardcore games, collectibles, utility tokens, and e-sports titles.

Strategic Investments and Holdings

Some of these products are developed by the company’s subsidiaries, which initially focused on game development for smartphones and tablets before embracing blockchain gaming approximately four years ago.

Others represent Animoca’s investments in other companies, including Dapper Labs, Sky Mavis – the creators of “Axie Infinity,” and the NFT marketplace OpenSea.

Valuation of Holdings

According to Siu, the collective value of these various holdings reached approximately $16 billion as of late November. However, this valuation remains theoretical as Animoca has not yet pursued any exits from these positions. He clarified that these holdings are essentially balance sheet items, contributing to the overall equity value of Animoca Brands.

Continued Investment Activity

Animoca continues to actively invest in the space. Recent investments include nCore Games, an Indian gaming firm aiming to give players greater ownership of in-game assets, which secured $10 million in funding co-led by Animoca Brands and Galaxy Interactive.

The company also led a $9 million Series A round for CryptoSlam, a Kansas-based NFT data aggregator, and spearheaded an $8 million Series A investment in Burnt Finance, a New York-based company developing an NFT auction protocol on the Solana blockchain.

Pictured above: Animoca Brands founder Yat Siu.