Sky Mavis, the parent company of blockchain-based game Axie Infinity, closed their funding round at $1.5 million led by Animoca Brands with participation from Hashed, Pangea Blockchain Fund, ConsenSys, and 500 Startups.
The fund will be used to accelerate the development of the Axie Infinity universe — a digital pet universe where players battle, raise and trade cute creatures called Axies. The company will also be building technology required to create fun and practical blockchain-based applications for users in the real world.
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Axie Infinity is one of the highest-grossing blockchain games of all time according to decentralized app ranking services DappRadar.com and Dapp.com. Since launched in May 2018, the company has released two games (Breeding and Idle Battles) in the Axie universe, currently having $1.1 million in digital asset sales and $1.8 million in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) traded on its marketplace. Axie Infinity is one of the most used ERC721 contracts ever and achieved a world record for ETH raised by a blockchain game in one day (1,200 ETH).
Vietnamese lead founder Trung Nguyen was previously co-founder of Lozi, which raised an 8-digit amount from Smilegate Investment and others recently. ‘I am proud of Axie Infinity team and community. This is what blockchain development is all about, a small team from Vietnam being able to attract funding from some of the top investors in the space. We now have the resources to take the Axie vision to people in the real world. We’re fully focused and locked in on the mobile app launch right now — we can’t wait to show it to everyone’, said Trung Nguyen.
With the funding, Axie Infinity is now having more resources to expand the team and deliver new features at an expedited rate. The company is set to launch its mobile application in the first half of 2020, which will introduce ‘play to earn’ to a new wave of blockchain users through beautiful, competitive, and immersive gameplay. It is also getting advice, feedback and support from new allies, including partnerships with Samsung, Klaytn — the blockchain project of Kakao, MakerDAO, Loom Network, HTC, & others.