Blockchain gaming platform startup Animoca Brands Corp. Ltd. said today it has raised $75.32 million in new funding to fund strategic acquisitions, investments and product development, secure licenses for popular intellectual properties and advance the open metaverse.

The investors in the round included Liberty City Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Alpha Wave Ventures, 10T, SG Spring Limited Partnership Fund, Generation Highway, Cosmic Summit Investments and others. The new funding was raised at a valuation of $5.9 billion.

Including the new funding, Animoca has raised $675.3 million to date, according to Crunchbase. Previous investors include C Ventures, Delta Fund, Gemini Frontier Fund, Soros Fund Management and Winklevoss Capital.

Founded in 2011, Animoca specializes in blockchain, gamification and artificial intelligence technologies to advance digital property rights and to contribute to the establishment of an open metaverse.

The company offers a portfolio of products, including cryptocurrency tokens, original games and branded games in conjunction with other companies and products. Animoca has worked with intellectual properties such as those from The Walt Disney Co., World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., Snoop Dogg, The Walking Dead, Power Rangers, MotoGP and Formula E.

Animoca is also heavily invested in nonfungible tokens, which can be used in metaverse-related gaming projects that incorporate digital property for online users. These are deployed using decentralized Web3 technology with blockchain infrastructure.

The company says it uses technologies including blockchain and NFTs to deliver true digital ownership of users’ virtual assets and data, enabling various DeFi and GameFi opportunities (including play-and-earn), asset interoperability and an open framework that can lead to greater equitability for all participants in the open metaverse.

As noted when Animoca raised funding in January, NFTs allow players direct ownership of in-game items as virtual assets and create real-world economies. Animoca’s mission is to use these assets to build a future where players earn crypto game assets as they play that can also be traded outside the game for other cryptocurrencies and traditional money, such as dollars.

“Digital property rights represent a society-defining generational shift that impacts everyone online and will set the stage for the emergence of the open metaverse,” Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, said in a statement.

Photo: Animoca Brands