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Miguel Cordon · · 4 min readEx-Grab, Googlers’ GameFi firm looks to bring play-to-earn to the masses
Southeast Asia’s GameFi sector lit up the stage last year, with titles like Axie Infinity and blockchain gaming guilds like Yield Guild Games raising massive rounds. Toward the end of 2021, four experienced tech veterans from Google, Microsoft, Airbnb, and Grab were cooking up their own GameFi platform.
Singapore-based Ethlas announced today that it has secured US$2.7 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital India, Yield Guild Games Southeast Asia, Global Blockchain Innovative Capital, and a host of other backers.
The Ethlas team / Photo credit: Ethlas
Demystifying blockchain gaming
Launched in November last year, Ethlas operates a free-to-play and play-to-earn (P2E) blockchain-based game metaverse built on the Polygon chain. According to the company’s website, the games it offers play similar to already popular mobile games like 2048, Candy Crush, and Tetris.
Ethlas’ founders came up with the idea to launch the startup when they found that Filipinos have been earning more from playing P2E games compared to their day jobs.
“Ethlas is a game aggregator – on one hand onboarding early players onto blockchain, but also appealing to the game studios to list their games on the site,” Elston Sam, co-founder of Ethlas, told Tech in Asia. The company said it’s currently working with game studios to launch their titles on Ethlas under a revenue-sharing model.
Ethlas co-founder Elston Sam / Photo credit: Ethlas
Sam established Ethlas alongside three other co-founders, including US-based Gennady Medvinsky. Before Ethlas, Medvinsky built products and platforms for companies such as Microsoft, Grab, and Google. The two other co-founders are currently in stealth mode.
They currently lead a team of 22 blockchain engineers, game developers, data scientists, cybersecurity experts, and designers who are based in Singapore, the US, and the Philippines. Ethlas plans to “aggressively” hire more as it builds out its platform in the coming months.
To start playing on Ethlas, users only need to install or link their existing crypto wallets. These games can also be played on a PC or a mobile phone’s browser.
This is in contrast to most GameFi platforms that require subscription fees or upfront capital. For Axie Infinity, a good team could cost upwards of US$1,000.
“One key product metric we anchor on is that it takes two minutes for a user landing for the first time on our website to the point they are playing their first game and having fun – no download hassle, crazy registration flow, paywall, or complex game mechanics,” Sam shared.
See also: Explaining Axie Infinity and its mercurial rise
Ethlas to the moon
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Ethlas, which is releasing its first set of NFTs, raised the seed funding from Sequoia, Yield Guild Games SEA, and a host of other backers.
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