Animoca Brands is a Hong Kong-based metaverse and gaming company focused on driving digital property rights through NFTs. ^[1][2][3]

History

Founded in 2014 by Yat Siu, Animoca Brands is a company that initially focused on developing mobile games before shifting its focus to blockchain gaming and NFTs in 2018.

"We really started as a mobile games business, and we were one of the biggest mobile game companies in Asia before Apple ingloriously de-platformed us in 2012 after it didn’t like the way we cross-promoted the company’s apps. At that point, we had well over 40 million installs and $20 million in annual revenue." - Yat Siu to Forbes in an interview^[5]

In November 2011, Animoca raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a Series A round led by Intel Capital and IDG-Accel (which tapped its China Growth Fund III). In 2014 Animoca Brands was spun out from Animoca, and the new entity listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in January 2015. ^[6]

In late 2017, Animoca Brands involvement in blockchain and NFTs began through CryptoKitties—a game centered around collecting, breeding, and trading virtual cats. At the time, a studio acquisition was underway in Canada involving Fuel Powered, which shared an office with Axiom Zen, the co-developer of CryptoKitties. The game launched in November 2017, unexpectedly gaining significant traction. Subsequently, the co-founder of Fuel Powered was invited to join Dapper Labs as a co-founder. As a result, Animoca Brands became shareholders of Dapper Labs and publishers of CryptoKitties in January 2018. ^[5]

Recognizing the potential of NFTs, particularly their implications for digital property rights, the organization chose to fully commit to the space, leading to substantial investments in Web3 companies. ^[5]

In March 2018, Animoca Brands launched OliveX, a fitness metaverse company building mobile games to gamify the fitness industry, which spun off from the company in August 2020. ^[8]

In March 2020, Animoca Brands was delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) when ASX claimed AB1 had been non-compliant with an array of listing rules since January 2019. Most notably, these included not maintaining continuous disclosure and failing to provide the exchange with compliant reporting documentation. ^[12]

Overview

Animoca Brands is focused on advancing digital property rights and contributing to the open metaverse. Their portfolio includes a variety of products, such as the REVV and SAND tokens, and games like The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes. They have several subsidiaries, including Quidd, GAMEE, and nWay, and over 380 investments in Web3, such as Colossal, Axie Infinity, and OpenSea. On these investments, founder Yat Siu commented:

"We invested in Sky Mavis, the developer of Axie Infinity, OpenSea (the world’s largest NFT marketplace), Wax and Decentraland. We also acquired the Sandbox. This all occurred during 2018-2019. Those were very, very early days, and we were somewhat lone rangers in the field. If you recall, in 2018, everyone was fleeing the fungible token scene and here we are talking about a non-fungible token. You can imagine how hard it was for us (or anyone) in the scene. We were one of the only ones at the time really pursuing it. I think one important factor for us is that we were kind of late to the traditional crypto game. We knew about Bitcoin and we knew about decentralization as a technology

But what really captured our imagination wasn’t the fungible tokens because they were more focused on the money. What excited us was what NFTs represented. That’s basically why we decided to go all in and I guess we came at a time when the market was really getting crushed—I mean, in the broader crypto sense, which, in hindsight, gave us a lot of opportunity."^[5]

The Financial Times has recognized Animoca Brands as a High Growth Company in the Asia-Pacific region for 2023, and they have also won the Deloitte Tech Fast award. ^[7]

Funding

In August 2018, Animoca Brands raised a $1 million investment from Sun Hung Kai and $0.5 million from strategic partner Lympo. In December 2018, Animoca Brands announced the completion of a $547,000 placement to institutional and sophisticated investors, a portion of which was applied towards funding its investment in AI accelerator Zeroth.ai. ^[9][10]

In 2019, Animoca Brands raised $2.5 million for the development of The Sandbox, a game where players can create and monetize experiences using the platform’s utility token, SAND. An additional $2.01 million in cash and cryptocurrency was secured from investors, including Square Enix, B Cryptos, and True Global Ventures. ^[11]

In May 2021 Animoca Brands raised a first tranche of $88,888,888 followed in July 2021 by the second tranche of $50 million, both of which were based on the valuation of US$1 billion becoming a crypto unicorn. In October 2021 Animoca Brands raised $65 million at a valuation of $2.2 billion from Ubisoft, Sequoia Capital, and others. In November 2021, SoftBank led a $93 million investment in Animoca Brands' The Sandbox. ^[13]

“In 2018, we laid out a strategy based on our assessment that in the future digital property rights would revolutionize industries by expanding financial inclusion and that this significant change would start with NFT adoption in games. That future is already here.” - Cofounder Yat Siu commented

“With the backing of our new strategic investors, Animoca Brands will continue to advance blockchain in gaming — and beyond — to introduce billions of gamers and Internet users to true digital ownership,” he added.^[13]

In December 2021, Binance and Animoca Brands launched a $200 million investment program to offer funding for blockchain games. ^[14]

“Early GameFi projects require funding to build their products, and need industry expertise for open-world gameplay and tokenomics, as well as networking opportunities to establish growth in the blockchain gaming and open metaverse. This investment program will provide these necessities to the projects that we think have the potential to take blockchain mainstream,” - Yat Siu ^[14]

In September 2023, the company raised $20 million in an Unattributed VC round with investors including CMCC Global and Kingsway Capital Partners. In December 2023, $11.89 million was invested in an Unattributed VC round with investors like Block1, Dapper Labs, and OKX Ventures. ^[4][15]

Product

Mocaverse

In December 2022, Animoca Brands announced Mocaverse, its official PFP NFT collection designed to strengthen the company’s ecosystem of Web3 and metaverse-centric projects. The Mocaverse NFT collection represents the shared values and ethos of Animoca Brands and its portfolio companies and partners. ^[17]

Mocaverse comprises 8,888 NFTs of characters called Mocas, each belonging to one of five tribes: Dreamers, Builders, Angels, Connectors, and Neo-Capitalists. Each of the tribes represents the diverse yet complementary personas of changemakers in Web3. ^[18]

Yat Siu commented during its release:

“The community of Animoca Brands stretches around the world and across the open metaverse. Our family and friends include builders and leaders who are shaping Web3 culture and creating the future of this space. Mocaverse is an opportunity to create a tighter and more synergistic community as we strengthen the connections between our teams and portfolio, and create new ways to build the next great projects and platforms.”^[17]

In July 2024, Mocaverse announced a strategic partnership with MOCA Foundation and The Open Network (TON) Foundation to implement an identity and reputation-based consumer network across Moca Network and TON Blockchain ecosystems. In conjunction with the strategic partnership, MOCA Foundation and TON Foundation have executed a strategic foundation-level token swap agreement of MOCA Coin (MOCA) priced at US$0.113 (US$1 billion FDV) and Toncoin to incentivize ecosystem and cross-pollination of users and projects across both ecosystems. ^[19]

In November 2024, Animoca Brands raised $10 million to build out Mocaverse, the firm's consumer network. Participants in the round include OKX Ventures, CMCC Global, HongShan, Republic Crypto, Decima Fund, and Kingsway Capital. ^[16]

TinyTap

TinyTap is the world’s largest educational games library with more than 200,000 activities made by educators and publishers including Sesame Street and Oxford University Press. The games on TinyTap are created using TinyTap’s code-free authoring platform and can be accessed by parents as part of TinyTap’s subscription or sold directly to families as courses. A portion of subscription revenue is shared with content creators based on the user engagement generated by their content. ^[23]

Anichess

Anichess is a decentralized chess-inspired game by Animoca Brands in partnership with Play Magnus Group (PMG) and its Champions Chess Tour. Anichess is dedicated to preserving the core ethos of chess as a predominantly skill-based and free-to-play game.

While maintaining the core rules of the classic game, Anichess provides enriched chess gameplay with an added layer of strategy through an innovative spell mechanic that consists of a range of offensive, defensive, and counter-tactics. There is also an emphasis on eSport-like elements to expand the gaming experience and offer new and captivating challenges to players. ^[24]

Motorverse

Motorverse is a global open ecosystem and community for digital vehicles, racing games and motorsports where automobile and motorcycle enthusiasts, motorsport fans, and gamers can collect and trade officially licensed digital vehicles, play and compete in a growing range of racing games, developed in partnership with leading automotive brands, top motorsport IPs including MotoGP™, Formula Drift, Formula E, and get access to real-world experiences including racing events, partner loyalty programs, and more. ^[25]

Prosper

Prosper is a decentralized, community-driven protocol bridging institutional-grade Bitcoin mining power on-chain and aiming to fully unlock the potential of Bitcoin. ^[26]

REVV Racing

REVV Racing is a skill-based action arcade automobile racing simulation that gives players full and real-time first-person control of their car. REVV Racing is a play-to-earn title in the REVV Motorsport metaverse of racing games and is a milestone in Animoca Brands’ ambitious plan to develop blockchain-based games that have the quality, look, and feel of traditional video games. ^[27]
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In REVV Racing, cars are NFTs and all play sessions are registered on blockchain - but it looks and plays like the 3D car racing games already familiar to millions of gamers globally. ^[27]

Torque Drift 2

Torque Drift 2 is a racing game that leverages blockchain tech. to offer an immersive and true-to-life drifting experience based on true digital ownership. As the official on-chain game for Formula DRIFT, Torque Drift 2 will deliver a range of authentic racing experiences for Web2 and Web3 gamers alike as it releases content and features through 2023 and 2024 for PC, with console availability to follow. Torque Drift 2 is part of the REVV Motorsport ecosystem of metaverse racing games. ^[28]

Phantom Galaxies

Phantom Galaxies is a fast-paced third-person experience that looks and plays exactly like the traditional 3D action RPGs familiar to millions of gamers, with the difference that it will allow players to have true ownership and control of in-game assets such as mechs, equipment, avatars, and game currency by having those assets exist as fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on an energy-efficient and scalable blockchain. ^[29]

Wreck League

Wreck League is the Megaverse’s preeminent mech sports combat organization, known for its spectacular battles, robust customization, and competitive culture. From humble beginnings on a distant junk moon to the creation of its governing board, B.R.A.W.L, Wreck League has grown to become the pinnacle of mechanized sporting events. ^[30]

Tower Experiment

This involves the creation of a system that attempts to maintain balance and equitability in a F2P game while introducing the value of blockchain features, including NFTs, DeFi, and governance. ^[31]

Acquisitions

• TicBits
• Pixowl
• Quidd
• Eden Games
• TinyTap
• Notre Game
• BeMedia
• Grease Monkey Games
• Darewise
• Bondly
• Blowfish Studios
• GAMEE
• WePlay Media
• Azarus
• Pixelynx
• Sviper^[20]

Partnerships

• hi ^[21]
• NEOM
• GEODNET
• Anime Foundation
• MyAnimeList
• One Football
• Turbo Token
• OKX Ventures
• CMCC Global
• Hong Shan, etc. ^[1]