Animoca Brands backs $6m round of Thai platform for NFT gamers

Thailand-based GuildFi, a Web3 platform developer for games, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and communities, said it raised US$6 million in a seed round, which was joined by Hong Kong’s Animoca Brands and co-led by DeFiance Capital and Hashed.

Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Dapper Labs, Play Ventures, SkyVision Capital, Coin98 Ventures, and other unspecified investors joined the round, according to a statement.

GuildFi co-founder Jarindr Thitadilaka / Photo credit: GuildFi

GuildFi provides the infrastructure to onboard and connect players, adding value to guilds, games, and investors across the metaverse. The platform said it had over 100,000 registered users, more than 20,000 daily users, and upwards of 1,500 scholars within three months of its launch.

The company aims to help people enter and explore a greater variety of play-to-earn games, which are typically expensive. For example, a balanced team in Axie Infinity today would cost a player roughly US$1,065, which is close to what the average monthly household income in Bangkok was in 2019.

“We solve discovery and access challenges for players by helping them discover new games, enhance performance with gaming tools, and track their engagement,” said Jarindr Thitadilaka, co-founder of GuildFi.

With the firm’s GuildFi ID product, players can climb up a ranking system and not limit themselves to specific guilds or games, Thitadilaka added.

The company said it will use the fresh capital to further evolve its interconnected ecosystem, including its game discovery, scholarship portal, and GameFi tools. The startup said it will look to forge partnerships with global game creators to identify and attract the right players while supporting them through in-game asset investment.