Animoca Brands joins $4m round in blockchain gaming startup

Yield Guild Games, a startup that specializes in blockchain-powered gaming, has secured US$4 million in its series A financing round led by Bitkraft Ventures, which invest primarily in gaming, esports, and interactive media.

A.Capital Ventures, Ideo CoLab, Mechanism Capital, and ParaFi Capital also participated in the fundraise. Existing backers including, Ascensive Assets, and SevenX Ventures joined the round as well, along with several angel investors.

Animoca brands, which recently entered unicorn teritory after raising US$88.8 million, also invested in the latest funding round.

Photo credit: Yield Guild Games

The new funds will be invested in nonfungible token (NFT) assets of play-to-earn games and expand Yield Guild’s network by acquiring more players globally.

Yield Guild is a group of decentralized game players and investors that generate yield from NFT token-based games. “Think of it as a massively multiplayer online (MMO) guild, for example, but operating across several games, investing in yield-generating NFTs within those games, and lending those in-game assets and inventory out to our player base,” said founder Gabby Dizon.

Yield Guild is also one of the first participants of the “Founder’s” sale by Guild of Guardians, a mobile blockchain role-playing game. The sale included various NFTs including guilds, heroes, pets, and energy boosters, and each them serve a different purpose in the game.

The development comes after Bitkraft struck a partnership deal with blockchain advisory firm Delphi Digital to identify the investment opportunities at the intersection of crypto and gaming.

“Games and virtual worlds are increasingly becoming hosts of real economic activity, enabled, and accelerated at scale through blockchain technology,” said Jens Hilgers, founding partner at Bitkraft Ventures.

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