Animoca Brands buys indie 🎮 developer Grease Monkey Games

Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming firm, has acquired Melbourne-based Grease Monkey Games. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Photo credit: Animoca Brands

An independent developer, Grease Monkey Games was founded in 2013 by Arran Potter, a veteran of the video visual effects industry. It specializes in motorsports-themed games such as Torque Burnout and Torque Drift, which are among its most popular titles. Its games have been downloaded 45 million times across PC and mobile  devices.

Grease Monkey will soon announce a new title, which will be a cross-platform racing game based on Unreal Engine 5.

Following the deal, the Grease Monkey management team will continue to run the company. It will work closely with Animoca to integrate blockchain, non-fungible tokens, and other features. Grease Monkey will also focus on the Hong Kong unicorn’s motorsport-themed blockchain gaming ecosystem.

The acquisition will help Animoca expand its portfolio and enhance its development capabilities, co-founder Yat Siu said in a statement.

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The deal comes weeks after Animoca banked US$359 million in a fundraise, which valued it at US$5 billion. The Liberty City Ventures-led round also saw participation from Sequoia China and Winklevoss Capital.

Besides project development and publishing, Animoca has invested in a slew of NFT and metaverse-based firms such as So-Col (Social Collectables), the platform behind popular NFT project IreneDAO.

Animoca has also partnered with VC firm Brinc to launch an accelerator program to build and grow the play-to-earn gaming guild ecosystem globally.