The Sandbox Parent Animoca Brands Raises $359M to Build Out Open Metaverse

The Sandbox parent company Animoca Brands has raised $358,888,888, to build out the open metaverse and enable individual digital ownership, the company announced on Tuesday. 

This funding round gives it a pre-money valuation of over $5 billion, the company said. The money will be used to continue funding strategic acquisitions and investments, as well as product development and licenses for intellectual properties.

The round was led by Liberty City Ventures and included other investors like 10T Holdings, C Ventures, ParaFi Capital, Sequoia China, Stable Asset Management, Soros Fund Management and Winklevoss Capital, among others.

In 2021, Animoca Brands raised $216.28 million to build out the open metaverse by bringing digital property rights to online users through the use of blockchain and NFTs and The Sandbox closed a funding round for $93 million in November 2021, the company said.

“We have set ourselves the ambitious goals of building an open Web3 and facilitating an open metaverse that expands financial inclusion,” Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands said in a statement. 

While there was tremendous growth in this space last year, “we believe we are still at the initial stages of a new Internet revolution, and there are tremendous opportunities ahead of us in 2022 and beyond,” Siu said. 

The company is an active investor in over 150 NFT and metaverse-related companies, including OpenSea, Dapper Labs, Yield Guild Games, Star Atlas, Axie Infinity, Thetan Arena, and others. 

Most recently, Animoca Brands participated in Metaplex Foundation’s $46 million funding round on Tuesday and separately led an $8 million Series A for Burnt Finance on Monday, a new NFT auction protocol built on Solana’s blockchain, Blockworks previously reported. 

“These technologies enable the true digital ownership of users’ virtual assets and data, and make possible various DeFi and GameFi opportunities,” the company wrote. Through elements like play-to-earn, asset interoperability and open frameworks, there can be greater equitability for all participants in the space, Animoca Brands noted. 

The precise valuation of Animoca Brands, based on share price and shares on issue prior to the capital raise, is $5.4 billion, or A$7.6B, at current exchange rates. The raise included a subscription price of $3.23, or A$4.50, per share for a total of 111,173,515 new shares. 

The company was not available for additional comment requested by Blockworks on Tuesday.

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