Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd. is a Hong Kong-based game software company and venture capital company co-founded in 2014 by Yat Siu and David Kim. The company initially focused on developing mobile games, then shifted to blockchain gaming and NFTs in 2018.

Animoca Brands was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange from 23 January 2015 to 9 March 2020.

History
On November 15, 2011, mobile games developer 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 in January 2015.

From January to March 2018, Animoca Brands started rolling out Crazy Kings and its sequel, Crazy Defense Heroes generating $2.8 million in revenue in the first three months worldwide.

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.

On 15 August 2018, Animoca Brands raised a $1 million investment from Sun Hung Kai and $0.5 million from strategic partner Lympo. On 18 December 2018, Animoca Brands announced that it had completed a US$547,000 placement to institutional and sophisticated investors, a portion of which would be applied towards funding its investment in artificial intelligence accelerator Zeroth.ai.

In May 2019, Animoca Brands raised $2.5 million to fund the development of a blockchain version of the video game The Sandbox, where players can build and monetize their gaming experiences using SAND, the platform’s utility token. Then, in March 2019, Animoca Brands raised another $2.01 million in cash and cryptocurrency for The Sandbox from investors that included Square Enix, B Cryptos, and True Global Ventures.

On 9 March 2020, Animoca Brands delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange.

In September 2020, Animoca Brands launched the blockchain racing ERC-20 utility token "REVV" on Uniswap, which was subsequently listed on various other exchanges.

In May 2021 Animoca Brands raised a first tranche of US$88,888,888 followed in July 2021 by the second tranche of US$50 million, both of which were based on valuation of US$1 billion. 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.

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

On March 15, 2022, Animoca Brands announced it would shut down the F1 Delta Time game the next day. The game had previously been lucrative, holding the record for the most expensive NFT of 2019 and with some transactions exceeding US$300,000. Sales within the game had flat-lined for the two years preceding the game's closure. The company announced plans to replace the game's non-functional NFTs with equivalent tokens for REVV Racing, a separate game which doesn't have Formula 1 branding.

On 21 June 2022, Animoca Brands Corporation Limited was convicted on charges of failing to lodge annual and half-yearly financial reports with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

In July 2022, Animoca Brands hit $5.9 billion valuation. In August 2022, Temasek with GGV Capital led a $110 million funding round for Animoca Brands at a $6 billion valuation to make it “pre-IPO ready”. Animoca looks to go public in Hong Kong or Middle East in 2025.

Notable properties
Notable projects and games include:

Phantom Galaxies, REVV Motorsport, Mocaverse, The Sandbox, GAMEE, Benji Bananas, TinyTap, Crazy Defense Heroes, nWay, Notre Game (founded in 2016), Quidd, Animoca Brands Japan, Pixowl, and Be Media.

Animoca Brands has also licensed games and applications for: The Addams Family, Atari, Care Bears, Fan Controlled Football, Formula E, Manchester City FC, MotoGP, Snoop Dogg, Wonder Park, Marvel, Power Rangers, and the WWE. Former licenses include Formula One.

Acquisitions
In July 2016, Animoca Brands acquired TicBits, developer of tower defense games Crazy Kings and Crazy Defense Heroes, for 5.4 million AUD.

In August 2018, the company acquired Pixowl, developer of the video game The Sandbox, for $4.875 million.

In August 2019, Animoca Brands acquired digital collectibles marketplace Quidd for $8 million. In November 2019, the company led a $1.5 million funding round for blockchain game developer Sky Mavis. In December 2019, Animoca Brands acquired Power Rangers game developer nWay for $7.69 million.

In April 2022, Animoca Brands acquired the Lyon-based video game developer, Eden Games. In September 2022, the company acquired MotoGP game developer WePlay Media.

Also acquired:


 * Acquisition of TinyTap, June 2022.
 * Acquisition of Notre Game, June 2022.
 * Acquisition of BeMedia, April 2022.
 * Acquisition of Grease Monkey Games, February 2022.
 * Acquisition of Eden Games, April 2022.
 * Acquisition of Darewise, April 2022.
 * Acquisition of Bondly, September 2021.
 * Acquisition of Blowfish Studios, July 2021.
 * Acquisition of GAMEE, July 2020.

Portfolio investments
Animoca Brands' has over 450 cryptocurrency as well as non-crypto-related holdings, this include Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Yuga Labs, Colossal Biosciences, MoviePass and CryptoKitties.

Partnerships
In July 2020, Animoca Brands, through subsidiary nWay, entered into a licensing agreement with WWE to develop a new mobile game on iOS and Android.

Animoca Brands partnered with stc play in 2023 and expanded in the Middle East.