Hong Kong-based Sandbox, which lets users build a virtual world using NFTs, raises $93M led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2
The Sandbox, a Hong Kong-based gaming platform that allows users to build a virtual world using non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has raised $93 million from investors led …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Sandbox's $93M round is SoftBank's second major bet on virtual-world platforms: Vision Fund led Improbable's $502M raise in 2017 to build a platform for simulated worlds, and Vision Fund 2 later co-led Improbable's $150M M² round to connect virtual worlds — a pattern of the same fund backing competing world-building infrastructure.
What distinguishes The Sandbox is the NFT-native model, and the corpus already shows demand forming around it: FaZe Clan plans to launch FaZe World on The Sandbox with digital goods, real estate, and events — evidence that entertainment brands are treating the platform as a distribution channel, not an experiment.
First-order effects
- The Sandbox gains $93M led by Vision Fund 2 to scale its user-built NFT world, while SoftBank adds a second and third virtual-world platform to a portfolio that already includes Improbable.
- FaZe Clan's planned FaZe World gets a better-capitalized host platform, de-risking its 2023 launch of digital goods, real estate, and events on The Sandbox.
Second-order effects
- Improbable, whose M² aims to let virtual worlds connect and which shares both a16z and Vision Fund 2 as backers, now competes directly with a SoftBank-backed NFT platform for the same brand and creator demand.
- Other entertainment IP holders face pressure to claim virtual land and goods on The Sandbox-style platforms, since FaZe's early move sets a template competitors must match or differentiate against.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, virtual-world platforms consolidate into a handful of venture-selected infrastructure players, with a single fund — Vision Fund 2 — holding positions on multiple sides of the market it is financing.
- NFT-based ownership becomes the default mechanism through which brands and fans transact inside these worlds, shifting platform economics from game sales to land, goods, and event revenue.
The trend: SoftBank is serially financing virtual-world platforms — Improbable, then The Sandbox — betting that the metaverse consolidates around a few NFT-native platforms backed by the same concentrated capital.