Animoca Brands funds business development with $87.7m capital raising, boosts market cap to $2.94b

In another endorsement for blockchain gaming, delisted ASX company Animoca Brands has closed an $87.7 million capital raising to fund strategic investments and acquisitions, product development, and licences for its popular intellectual properties.

The raising boosts the company’s valuation to $2.94 billion and follows a similar round of funding in July which raised $186 million for a value of $1.33 billion.

It is a far cry from Animoca’s $120 million market cap in March 2020 when the ASX kicked it off the boards for its involvement in cryptocurrency activities.

The latest cap raise attracted backing from gaming giant Ubisoft Entertainment, and a string of global investors such Sequoia China, Dragonfly Capital, 10T Holdings, Smile Group, Sigitech Holdings and Tess Ventures.

It saw Animoca issue more than 43.9 million new shares to investors at a price of $2 each, managed by corporate advisor Everest Ventures Group.

Global NFTs

The fresh capital proves the strength of Animoca’s plan to deliver digital property rights, play-to-earn capabilities, and digital asset interoperability via non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to global markets.

Animoca co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu was acting on vision and foresight when he decided to go to the market for the second time in six months.

“In 2018, we laid out a strategy based on our assessment that digital property rights would revolutionise industries of the future by expanding financial inclusion, and that this significant change would start with NFT adoption in games,” he said.

“That future is already here with the backing of our new strategic investors, we will continue to advance blockchain in gaming to introduce billions of gamers and internet users to true digital ownership.”

Animoca has a portfolio of over 100 investments in what it sees as the world’s most meaningful NFT-related companies, including NFT marketplace OpenSea and NFT-based online video game Axie Infinity.

Digital property rights

Animoca is bringing digital property rights to online users, primarily for consumer video game players and the metaverse (or shared virtual world environments), through the use of blockchain and NFTs.

The technologies enable the true digital ownership of a user’s virtual assets and data, and offer various play-to-earn capabilities, asset inter-operability, and DeFi (decentralised financing) and GameFi (game financing) opportunities.

In the last few years, the company has established itself as one of the world’s leading technology groups in blockchain and gaming by spearheading and innovating decentralised in-game rewards and monetisation in video games.

It operates within a global video game market estimated to generate revenues of $234.57 billion in 2021 from more than 2.9 billion players.