Singapore- and Vietnam-based blockchain startup Sky Mavis has bagged nearly $1.5 million in a funding round led by ASX-listed games and app developer Animoca Brands, according to an announcement.
The round was joined by Korean crypto fund Hashed, Swiss Pangea Blockchain Fund, US-based blockchain solution provider ConsenSys and early-stage VC firm 500 Startups.
The lead investor said it subscribed to $420,000 worth of ordinary shares in Sky Mavis in cash and its own shares. It has also signed advisory and collaboration agreements with the owner of blockchain-based game Axie Infinity.
The advisory agreement will see Sky Mavis provide consultation services in the areas of scarcity models, as well as the design, development and distribution of non-fungible tokens. Animoca Brands will pay Sky Mavis a fee amounting to $45,000, payable in fully paid ordinary shares of the company issued at a price per share of A$0.18.
Sky Mavis will use proceeds from the funding round to complete its offerings within the Axie Infinity universe and launch an app in the first half of 2020. It will also be building technology required to create blockchain-based applications for users in the real world.
Since its launch in May 2018, Sky Mavis has released two games – Breeding and Idle Battles, currently having $1.1 million in digital asset sales and $1.8 million in gross merchandise volume traded on its marketplace.
Its partner network includes Samsung, Kakao’s blockchain project Klaytn, MakerDAO, Loom Network and HTC.
“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,” said Sky Mavis’s Vietnamese founder Trung Nguyen, who is also the co-founder of Lozi, which recently raised an 8-digit amount from Smilegate Investment and others.
Animoca Brands is an investor in Lucid Sight, Dapper Labs, WAX, Harmony and Decentraland. Its most recent investments include Quidd, Gamma Innovations, Leade.rs, Experimental and Skytree.
