Animoca Brands, which lets players own in-game items as NFTs, raises $65M at a $2.2B valuation, up from $1B in May
Animoca Brands, a prominent investor in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized gaming, has completed a capital raise of $65 million at a $2.2 billion valuation, the company announced Wednesday.
Context & Ripple Effects
This raise is the second step in a steep climb: five months after Animoca Brands' $88M raise at a $1B valuation in May 2021, the company doubles its paper value to $2.2B on $65M more capital. The subsequent coverage shows how far that trajectory ran — a $5B round led by Liberty City in January 2022, then a $75.32M tranche pushing the valuation to $5.9B by mid-2022.
What makes the arc notable is the gap between valuation and exit: Animoca was already delisted in Australia, and by 2024 it was reportedly weighing an IPO in Hong Kong or the Middle East — years of compounding private marks without a public market to validate them.
First-order effects
- Animoca Brands gains fresh capital to fund its role as Asia's biggest investor in blockchain ownership projects, deepening a portfolio strategy rather than a single-game bet.
- Its investors accept a $2.2B mark on $65M of new money, pricing NFT gaming infrastructure off momentum from the May round rather than revenue disclosures.
Second-order effects
- Rival Web3 gaming studios and funds now face an investor with a doubled valuation and a stated ambition to challenge what Yat Siu calls the 'digital dictatorships' of Meta and Microsoft, forcing competitors to match both capital and the player-ownership pitch.
- Successive raises set a valuation benchmark other NFT gaming companies cite in their own fundraises, inflating the sector's private-market floor.
Third-order effects
- The pattern — repeated private marks, a delisting from Australia, and eventual IPO exploration — is a case study in the private valuation-liquidity gap: paper valuations compound while shareholders wait years for any liquid event.
- If the model holds, gaming consolidates around platform-investors that own stakes across dozens of titles and monetize interoperable NFT assets, shifting power from individual game publishers to portfolio owners.
The trend: Web3 gaming valuations are compounding through rapid successive private raises, widening the gap between investor marks and any actual liquidity event.