Institutional Spotlight: Limit Break Raises $200 Million, and Wolf3D Raises $56 Million

The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is reflected not only in new investments in infrastructure but also in the growing focus companies are placing toward Bitcoin as an asset class. The most significant developments of the past weeks are in ForkLog’s review.

Mobile-game developer Limit Break raises $200 million

Limit Break, in the course of two investment rounds raised $200 million. The team plans to embed Web3 elements into the Free-to-Play (F2P) model of mobile multiplayer online games.

The rounds were led by Paradigm, Standard Crypto, and Mino Games CEO Josh Buckley. The funds were also provided by FTX, Coinbase, and Positive Sum.

Through Web3, the startup intends to transform F2P into a Free-to-Own model, which envisages users freely issuing genesis NFTs.

Limit Break was founded by former Machine Zone CEO Gabriel Leydon and CTO Halbert Nakagawa. The studio is known for hits such as Game of War, Mobile Strike, and Final Fantasy XV.

Media: Animoca Brands raises $100 million from Temasek

According to Bloomberg sources, Animoca Brands raised $100 million in the form of convertible bonds to be purchased by Temasek, the Singapore state-owned investment company.

The parties declined to comment.

The Hong Kong-based company is the publisher of titles such as The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes, as well as digital IP-based products.

Wolf3D avatar platform attracted $56M from a16z

The Wolf3D startup behind the Ready Player Me platform closed a Series B round of $56 million.

It was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) with participation from Konvoy Ventures, Collab Currency, Plural Platform, Hartbeat Ventures, Roblox co-founder David Baszucki, and Twitch co-founder Justin Kan.

By the end of 2022, the startup plans to double its headcount—from 50 to 100.

Wolf3D is known for creating the avatar system for Tencent, Wargaming, Huawei, Verizon, and HTC.

To build a facial database for Ready Player Me, the company scanned more than 20,000 people using about 100 cameras.

Users can create avatars for free on the platform, and developers can integrate Ready Player Me into apps and receive ready-to-use assets at no cost. Among the startup’s 3,252 clients are VRChat, Spatial, Hiber, Pixelynx, Adidas, RTFKT, and Dior.

Animoca Brands Japan raised $45 million at a $500 million valuation

Animoca Brands Japan raised $45 million from its parent company and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc., one of the country’s oldest banks.

The preliminary valuation of the company was $500 million. According to the report, the funding was split evenly between the two investors.

The funds will be used to acquire licenses for popular IPs, develop internal capabilities, and promote Web3.

Xterio, Web3 game developer, raises $40 million

The Switzerland-based Web3 games publisher Xterio raised $40 million. The funding round was led by FunPlus, Makers Fund, FTX Ventures and XPLA.

It also included participation from Animoca Brands, HashKey, Foresight Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, and Matrix Partners. It used a SAFT model for the raise.

Co-founder Jeremy Horn said the startup’s valuation reached $300 million.

The funds will be used to develop mobile and browser-based Web3 games, and to hire staff. Xterio currently has 60 employees, including former executives from Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, Krafton, and FunPlus.

Thirdweb, platform for Web3 developers, raises $24 million

The team behind the platform for building Web3 applications Thirdweb closed a Series A for $24 million at a $160 million valuation. It was led by Haun Ventures, the former partner of a16z Katie Haun.

Investors also included Coinbase Ventures, Shopify, Protocol Labs, Shrug VC, and Kleiner Perkins partner Joseph Lacob.

The funds will be used to hire engineers and integrate Cosmos, Near, Flow and Solana in addition to Ethereum, Avalanche and Fantom.

Thirdweb offers audited smart contracts that enable building and securely deploying decentralized applications, as well as managing analytics.

The company says that in the last nine months, more than 55,000 developers have used its tools to build apps.

Web3 competitor to Twitch raises $12.9 million from Pantera Capital

The decentralized video streaming Stacked raised $12.9 million in a Series A financing round.

It was led by Pantera Capital with participation from GFR Fund and Yahoo! Japan’s parent company’s venture arm.

The startup aims to offer a decentralized alternative to YouTube (Alphabet) and Twitch (Amazon). The team intends to give creators a larger share of the revenue and provide ownership of the platform through a governance token. The asset can be earned on the service.

The funds will be used for marketing, content acquisition, hiring, and expanding the business in Latin America, India and Southeast Asia.

Top executives from Galaxy Digital and Genesis to launch a $500 million crypto fund

A group of executives from Galaxy Digital, Genesis and Convex Trading filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to register DBA Crypto Fund I LP for $500 million.

The fund has not yet raised any capital.

The general partners are Galaxy Digital investments co-head Michael Jordan, Genesis derivatives head Joshua Lim, former Genesis head of trading Roshun Patel, and Convex Trading CEO and co-founder Shane Barratt.

A Axios note drew attention that the fund will be led by executives from firms affected by the Terra crash and the Three Arrows Capital turmoil.

Also on ForkLog:

• Reddit co-founder will raise $177.6 million for a new crypto fund.
• Polygon co-founder launched a $50 million fund for Web3 project investments.

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