Sky Mavis scales back $150m funding round after reimbursing all users

Photo credit: photo_gonzo / Shutterstock

Sky Mavis, the company behind popular blockchain game Axie Infinity, has scaled back a US$150 million funding round after it was able to reimburse all users who were affected by the Ronin Network hack.

In March 2022, the Ronin Network suffered from a security breach that resulted in the theft of 173,600 ether and about US$25.5 million in USDC. The stolen tokens were valued at around US$620 million at the time.

Sky Mavis announced the US$150 million funding round in April 2022, just one week after the hack. However, the company said it was able to refill the Ronin Network bridge and reimburse all users with its own balance sheet.

As a result, the developer only raised US$11 million in the funding round led by a16z and Animoca Brands.

This has lowered Sky Mavis’ valuation from US$3 billion to US$1.95 billion, according to VentureCap Insights, which tracks regulatory filings in Singapore.

“We wanted to honor the terms originally offered,” a Sky Mavis spokesperson said. “We were able to make all users whole with internal funds.”

Earlier this year, the Ronin Network was upgraded to a delegated proof-of-stake model to improve its security. Sky Mavis said at the time that it had onboarded four game studios that were building and launching games on the network.

See also: Why are Sega, Bandai, Square Enix backing this blockchain?

Note: This article was written with the help of AI. Don’t worry, humans were still involved in producing this story.