Singapore-based Salad Ventures has launched Salad Academy, a massive open online course (MOOC) platform specializing in play-to-earn blockchain games like Axie Infinity.
Founded earlier this year, Salad Ventures (yes, it is named after the dish) also operates Apollo Squad, a play-to-earn guild, and Guild OS, a software designed to help guilds to run and manage their players.
Photo credit: Salad Ventures
The startup recently secured US$2 million in seed funding from institutional investors such as Multicoin Capital and Kosmos Ventures. Angel investors who participated in the round include Santiago R Santos, Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano, Jack Herrick, among others.
Salad Ventures was established by Felix Sim, a Singaporean entrepreneur, and Wesley Mathews, a professional events host and streamer.
Sim tells Tech in Asia that the idea for Salad Academy, which is like “the Udemy of GameFi,” came from their desire to help the play-to-earn space be “more organized.” GameFi, which combines blockchain gaming and decentralized finance, generally refers to play-to-earn games.
“If you have scholars in your guild, let them play the game and earn some money – that’s just buying them some more runway. We believe it starts with education,” Sim explains.
The explosion of play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity has led to the rise of “scholars,” or players who want to earn money from blockchain games but don’t have funding upfront to get started.
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Salad Academy’s free online courses are initially focused on Axie Infinity, but the team is currently adding courses for other games including Mines of Dalarnia, Happyland, and MiniRoyale.
“While running Apollo Squad, we’ve been training our players a lot – doing live Zoom calls, going through step by step what they should do or shouldn’t do in order to maximize their returns from the game,” says Sim. “We want to create a structured way to teach anybody how to play these blockchain games properly and profitably.”
Axie accreditation is available at two certification levels: Basic Axie and Arena Mastery. The course materials include videos and presentations, and require online test completion with scores of over 80% for progression and ultimate certification. The academy will soon include free NFT-minting of certificates to its graduates.
According to Sim, Salad Academy can potentially be a launchpad for new blockchain games, and studios can contribute content to the platform.
All courses on blockchain games will remain free, as the startup’s main business is still Apollo Squad, which is on track to have about 1,000 scholars by the end of this year.
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