Animoca Brands, the eight-year-old, roughly 600-person Hong Kong-based outfit that has driven its footprint into many of the world’s leading NFT and metaverse brands, has secured about $360 million in fresh funding at a valuation surpassing $5 billion. This significant capital raise underscores a remarkable leap from the roughly $2.2 billion valuation the company commanded in October after a $65 million round, and it stands out even against a July round that pegged Animoca at $1 billion. Crunchbase data puts the company’s cumulative funding at approximately $604 million to date.
In a move described by a company spokesperson as a “pretty standard equity-based raise,” Animoca issued 111,173,515 new shares, priced around $3.24 per share. The financing cements Animoca’s status as an unlisted public company in practice, a transition it outlined after previously trading on the Australian Securities Exchange and subsequently delisting in early 2020 because, as founder Yat Siu noted, the exchange didn’t align with its crypto-centric business focus. Siu explained that the company’s shareholder base, roughly 2,500 strong, can still trade shares privately among interested buyers, though liquidity remains fundamentally different from a traditional public market. The round’s structure, including a sizeable primary issuance, reflects both the company’s growth ambitions and the market’s appetite for web3 gaming, blockchain-enabled experiences, and diversified portfolios of digital assets and platforms.
A spokesperson for Animoca highlighted the mechanics behind the funding: secondary placements arose because demand exceeded the amount available in the primary offering. The spokesperson stressed that secondary placements do not form part of the capital raise itself and that any proceeds or transfers occurring through secondary sales do not count toward the company’s official finances. This distinction is crucial for understanding how liquidity and trading activity interact with the company’s reported capital raise, shareholder composition, and balance sheet dynamics. The funding round was led by Liberty City Ventures, an early investor in Animoca, and included support from a blend of existing partners and new entrants. Names on the investor roster span a wide spectrum of traditional venture capital, crypto-focused funds, asset managers, and strategic technology investors, illustrating how Animoca’s approach to funding intersects with both conventional private capital markets and blockchain-focused financial ecosystems.
Additional participants in the round encompass a broad constellation of industry players, including 10T Holdings, C Ventures, Delta Fund, Gemini Frontier Fund, Gobi Partners Greater Bay Area, Kingsway, L2 Capital, Mirae Asset, Pacific Century Group, ParaFi Capital, Provident, Senator Investment Group, Sequoia China, Smile Group, Stable Asset Management, Soros Fund Management, Wildcat Capital Management, and Winklevoss Capital. The collection of backers underscores a multi-pronged confidence in Animoca’s strategy to build and scale a diversified web3 gaming and digital-asset ecosystem. The combination of legacy venture firms with crypto-native funds and emerging asset managers signals a blended investor base that values both traditional governance and crypto-specific upside, particularly in a market where blockchain gaming, virtual goods, and metaverse experiences continue to attract attention and capital.
From a market perspective, Animoca’s appeal today is evident. As indicated in our recent examination of the company’s trajectory, Animoca controls a broad portfolio of game products and platforms that blend centralized and decentralized models, branded and original IP, and coverage across major platforms from mobile devices to consoles, PC, web environments, and blockchain-enabled experiences. The company’s catalog spans a spectrum from hyper-casual experiences to deeper, more complex titles, and includes a range of digital collectibles, utility tokens, and e-sports titles. This multi-format approach aligns with the current market preference for flexible, scalable experiences that can operate across multiple distribution channels and monetization schemes, including in-game economies, tokenized rewards, and cross-platform ecosystems.
Section 1: Funding milestone, corporate structure, and strategic implications
Animoca’s latest fundraising milestone represents a pivotal inflection point in both its corporate structure and its strategic posture within the broader blockchain gaming landscape. The infusion of approximately $360 million at a valuation exceeding $5 billion signals a high level of confidence from investors in the company’s ability to steward a sizable, multifaceted portfolio into a period characterized by rapid innovation, regulatory shifts, and evolving consumer engagement with digital assets. The $5 billion-plus valuation, built on a history of substantial rounds, indicates substantial market interest in Animoca’s approach to monetizing and monetizing through digital assets across diverse platforms, as well as its capacity to license, partner, and invest in externally developed products that resonate with a broad spectrum of users.
This financing also reinforces Animoca’s identity as an unlisted public company in practical terms. The distinction matters because it shapes how liquidity is achieved and how the company communicates governance and investor relations to its community and broader market. The company’s founder and leadership have repeatedly described a model where public market metrics are replaced with private-market dynamics, including share trading among private holders and selective disclosures that balance transparency with strategic discretion. The move away from a traditional public listing—and the decision to operate as an unlisted public company—reflects a nuanced stance toward crypto assets, regulatory considerations, and investor expectations in a space where rapid development and compliance must be carefully balanced.
The mechanics of this round—specifically the issuance of 111,173,515 new shares at approximately $3.24 per share—underscore a disciplined capital-raising approach designed to preserve proportional ownership and maintain a healthy capital structure while expanding the company’s firepower for continued investment in its ecosystem. Primary capital raised through the new shares provides the funds that Animoca can deploy toward growth initiatives, product development, platform expansion, and new equity positions in external ventures. The secondary placements, while driven by robust demand, are expressly separated from the company’s financing and do not alter its official cash position or the metrics used to evaluate the round’s impact on the company’s balance sheet. This separation helps maintain clarity around what the fundraising achieves in terms of capital and what the secondary market activity reflects about private investor sentiment and liquidity for existing shareholders.
In terms of corporate strategy, the round serves to fortify Animoca’s capital base as it scales its investments in game development, blockchain infrastructure, and strategic holdings across the web3 space. The company’s leadership has consistently emphasized the importance of a broad, diversified portfolio that spans consumer-facing games, blockchain-enabled platforms, and a suite of assets designed to unlock new forms of digital ownership and participation in online communities. The fresh capital can be deployed to accelerate product development, expand into new markets, fund acquisitions or minority stakes, and support long-term value creation for shareholders. The unlisted public structure, with a sizable but privately traded shareholder base, is designed to give Animoca flexibility while maintaining a governance framework that aligns with investor expectations for growth, transparency, and prudent risk management.
Section 2: Deal dynamics, principal investors, and the breadth of support
The round unfolds against a backdrop of a broad and diverse investor coalition, reflecting both the scale of Animoca’s ambitions and the cross-cutting appeal of its web3 gaming and metaverse strategy. Liberty City Ventures, a seasoned participant in Animoca’s funding history, took a leading role in this latest round, signaling a strong vote of confidence from a group with deep experience in technology-oriented opportunities and early-stage to growth-stage investments. The participation of Liberty City Ventures, coupled with contributions from a wide array of other investors, reinforces the market’s belief in Animoca’s capacity to navigate a rapidly evolving landscape where consumer gaming intersects with blockchain technologies, NFT ecosystems, and digital asset economies.
Among the participants in the funding round are a blend of established and emergent players across the venture, crypto, and asset-management sectors. Notable names include 10T Holdings, which has shown a sustained interest in crypto-focused ventures; C Ventures, Delta Fund, and Gemini Frontier Fund, which bring a mix of strategic insight and digital-asset market experience; and Gobi Partners Greater Bay Area, Kingsway, L2 Capital, Mirae Asset, and Pacific Century Group, all of whom contribute regional and global perspectives on technology-driven growth. The roster also features ParaFi Capital, Provident, Senator Investment Group, Sequoia China, Smile Group, Stable Asset Management, Soros Fund Management, Wildcat Capital Management, and Winklevoss Capital, with each firm bringing a distinct set of competencies—from traditional asset-management discipline to crypto-native market knowledge and a track record of backing disruptive platforms.
The depth and breadth of the investor lineup serve multiple strategic purposes. First, they provide broad capital support enabling Animoca to push forward on multiple fronts—portfolio expansion, product development, and international growth strategies. Second, the mix of strategic and financial investors helps align Animoca with a spectrum of governance expectations, risk tolerance, and long-term value creation goals. Third, the presence of high-profile funds and asset managers underscores the market’s perception of Animoca as a leadership position within the blockchain gaming ecosystem—an ecosystem where the convergence of gaming, digital collectibles, tokenized ecosystems, and decentralized platforms has grown into a major vector of consumer technology and entertainment.
In addition to the investor dynamics, the round’s structure suggests a persistent demand for Animoca’s strategic assets and partnerships, particularly in the context of a global market that is still grappling with regulatory clarity for crypto-based businesses and tokenized assets. The high demand that necessitated a secondary placement highlights the company’s resonance with investors who view its portfolio as a potential engine for future growth across multiple vectors, including creator economies, cross-platform play, and scalable monetization models in blockchain-enabled gaming. While secondary placements are separate from the core financing and do not contribute to the company’s official finances, they provide a signal of investor interest in sharing in the upside of Animoca’s ecosystem through secondary markets. This dynamic can influence shareholder sentiment, pricing expectations for future rounds, and the discipline with which Animoca manages its equity story in private markets.
To understand the impact of such a round on Animoca’s strategic calculus, it helps to consider the broader market context. The company operates at the intersection of mobile gaming, blockchain technology, and digital asset markets—a convergence that has evolved rapidly in recent years and continues to attract capital from both traditional venture capital and crypto-native funds. In this environment, a multi-faceted funding round with a compelling valuation can enable Animoca to accelerate product development across its internal studios and its portfolio companies, while also pursuing strategic investments that expand the company’s reach and influence. The emphasis on an equity-based raise, paired with a transparent explanation of secondary market dynamics, suggests a disciplined approach to capital deployment that seeks to preserve value for existing shareholders while extending opportunities for new participants to participate in Animoca’s growth trajectory.
Section 3: Portfolio breadth, balance-sheet considerations, and strategic positioning
A defining feature of Animoca Brands is its expansive and diversified portfolio, which the company frames as a “broad portfolio of game products, both centralized and decentralized, branded and original, with coverage across most primary platforms including mobile devices, game consoles, PC, web, and blockchain.” The company’s products span a continuum from hyper-casual to hardcore titles and include a mix of in-game collectibles, utility tokens, e-sports titles, and other digital experiences that leverage blockchain-enabled mechanics. This portfolio strategy positions Animoca as a major aggregator and accelerator of web3 gaming, with a long-term horizon that emphasizes asset ownership, cross-platform play, and interoperable digital economies. The scale and variety of the portfolio are designed to mitigate risk across individual franchises while enabling a broader set of monetization opportunities across different consumer segments and geographies.
The company’s holdings extend beyond its own branded titles to significant investments and stakes in other influential players in the blockchain gaming space. Notably, Animoca has stakes in Dapper Labs, Sky Mavis—the creator of the globally popular Axie Infinity—and the NFT trading platform OpenSea. These holdings reflect Animoca’s strategic emphasis on establishing a web3-enabled backbone for digital ownership, player-driven economies, and cross-platform experiences that can be integrated or leveraged across a wider ecosystem of games and services. According to Yat Siu, these holdings are valued around $16 billion as of late November, though this figure remains theoretical for now because Animoca has not pursued exits from these positions. Siu described these as balance-sheet items that contribute to the overall equity value of Animoca Brands, rather than assets being actively monetized through sales or liquidations at present. This framework underscores a cautious yet optimistic approach to asset valuation, acknowledging that the true market realization of these stakes will unfold over time as the ecosystem matures and strategic opportunities arise.
The balance-sheet approach to valuing such holdings reflects a broader dynamic in the blockchain gaming industry, where many assets, platforms, and partnerships are valued on the basis of potential strategic benefits and future upside rather than immediate sale value. In Animoca’s case, the emphasis is on the cumulative effect of these holdings on the company’s long-term equity value, governance capabilities, and horizon for strategic monetization. The approach also aligns with a broader industry practice where large, diversified portfolios serve as both engines of growth and buffers against volatility in any single segment. For a company operating at the frontier of gaming and blockchain, such a structure enables Animoca to experiment with new game formats, governance models, and monetization strategies without being overly dependent on a single title or platform.
In practical terms, the portfolio’s breadth supports several strategic advantages. First, cross-pollination of technology and experience across the portfolio can accelerate innovation, enabling Animoca to translate learnings from one asset class or game into others. Second, the range of holdings provides multiple avenues for collaboration with developers, studios, and ecosystem partners, creating a network effect that can amplify growth and user engagement. Third, the presence of high-profile, successful assets in the portfolio can bolster Animoca’s credibility with investors, developers, and publishers, reinforcing the company’s reputation as a leading builder and investor in the web3 gaming space. The combination of internal development with external investments aligns with a model that seeks to build scale, resilience, and sustainable value creation across evolving digital economies.
Section 4: Ongoing investments and ecosystem expansion in web3 gaming
Animoca’s active investment strategy this year further reinforces its role as a catalyst in the web3 gaming and NFT space. The company has already been involved in a series of notable investments and leadership roles in emerging gaming ventures that aim to redefine how players own, trade, and monetize digital assets within and across games. Among the highlighted efforts are its involvement with nCore Games, an Indian gaming firm that is focusing on enabling players to own more of the assets they use in gameplay. NCore Games recently announced a funding round of $10 million, with Animoca Brands and Galaxy Interactive among the co-leaders or major contributors. This investment signals a strategic focus on enabling asset ownership in mobile-centric gaming economies, leveraging blockchain-enabled features to expand player agency and long-term engagement.
In addition to this, Animoca led a $9 million Series A round for CryptoSlam, a Kansas-based data aggregator specializing in non-fungible token (NFT) industry analytics. The investment demonstrates Animoca’s interest in strengthening data infrastructure and market intelligence around NFT markets, which can inform decision-making for developers, collectors, and investors across the ecosystem. The company also led an $8 million Series A for Burnt Finance, a New York-based startup developing an NFT auction protocol built on the Solana blockchain. This move highlights Animoca’s willingness to engage with multiple blockchain ecosystems and to support platforms that expand the liquidity, accessibility, and efficiency of NFT markets, auctions, and trading.
Taken together, these investments illustrate Animoca’s broader strategy of catalyzing growth in the web3 gaming space by supporting projects that align with its emphasis on ownership, interoperability, and scalable digital economies. By backing ventures like nCore Games, CryptoSlam, and Burnt Finance, Animoca strengthens its position as an accelerator and partner for developers seeking to embed blockchain-based experiences into their titles and platforms. These investments also underscore the company’s interest in data transparency, asset ownership, and new models of monetization that can flourish in decentralized environments, while continuing to support traditional gaming ecosystems that can integrate with blockchain-enabled features.
The company’s leadership has continued to emphasize that its portfolio and investments are intended to complement and extend its core business, not merely to chase speculative gains. The aim is to build durable value through strategic stakes, partnerships, and collaborations that can accelerate the adoption of blockchain-based gaming and digital ownership at scale. Yat Siu’s remarks, along with the ongoing investments in high-potential ventures, reflect a long-term, value-driven approach designed to position Animoca at the forefront of the evolving web3 gaming paradigm. The focus remains on cultivating a robust ecosystem where developers, players, investors, and institutions can participate in shared growth, with Animoca acting as a steward and catalyst for innovation.
Section 5: Strategic implications for the broader web3 gaming landscape
The trajectory of Animoca Brands—its funding rounds, portfolio diversification, and active investment program—carries meaningful implications for the broader web3 gaming and NFT sectors. Investors appear to reward the company not just for its current holdings but for its ability to blend traditional gaming instincts with crypto-native capabilities. The company’s strategy demonstrates how a well-funded, diversified portfolio can play a crucial role in shaping industry standards, influencing governance models, and accelerating the adoption of digital ownership at scale. This is particularly relevant as the space contends with questions about regulation, user protection, and the long-term viability of tokenized economies within gaming ecosystems.
Moreover, Animoca’s unlisted public company structure, with a large base of private shareholders and ongoing liquidity via secondary markets, presents an interesting model for other players in the sector. It shows a pathway to maintain the visibility and credibility of a public-company footprint while retaining the flexibility of private liquidity and governance arrangements that can accommodate rapid experimentation and strategic pivots. The round’s announced allocations and the emphasis on equity-based funding demonstrate a mature, disciplined approach to capital deployment that acknowledges the need for patient, long-horizon investments in web3 infrastructure, platform development, and cross-border expansion.
As the ecosystem evolves, Animoca’s experience and strategy may influence how other game developers, investors, and asset managers approach collaboration, capitalization, and value creation in the blockchain gaming space. The deal underscores the growing importance of cross-disciplinary partnerships—combining game design excellence, blockchain engineering, data analytics, and financial engineering—to build scalable, sustainable platforms that can withstand market volatility and regulatory uncertainty while delivering compelling experiences for players. It also highlights how strategic investors are drawn to a company with a diversified portfolio of active ventures and a track record of leadership in the NFT and metaverse sectors, reinforcing the belief that Animoca is well-positioned to shape the next phase of digital ownership and immersive entertainment.
Conclusion
Animoca Brands’ latest funding round, with about $360 million raised at a valuation surpassing $5 billion, marks a transformative milestone in the company’s growth trajectory and strategic positioning within the web3 gaming landscape. The financing, which involved issuing 111,173,515 new shares at around $3.24 per share, reinforces Animoca’s capacity to scale its diversified portfolio across centralized and decentralized game products, collectibles, tokens, and blockchain-enabled experiences. The round’s structure—coupled with a robust slate of investors led by Liberty City Ventures and a broad roster of strategic and crypto-focused backers—signals strong market confidence in Animoca’s long-term strategy to empower a vibrant ecosystem of developers, platforms, and players.
Animoca’s portfolio approach, which includes stakes in Dapper Labs, Sky Mavis, and OpenSea, along with a broader set of holdings valued at approximately $16 billion as of late November, positions the company as a central hub in the evolving world of blockchain gaming, digital ownership, and NFT markets. While these holdings are not yet exited assets, they contribute meaningful value to Animoca’s balance sheet and equity narrative, shaping investor expectations about future liquidity events, strategic partnerships, and potential monetization paths for a rapidly expanding ecosystem.
Beyond its internal development efforts, Animoca continues to invest actively in companies that advance the web3 gaming frontier, including the leadership roles in nCore Games, CryptoSlam, and Burnt Finance. These investments underscore a strategic commitment to expanding the tools, platforms, and data capabilities that underpin a healthy, interoperable digital-asset economy. As the industry navigates regulatory developments, consumer adoption, and evolving monetization models, Animoca’s approach—balancing portfolio diversification, strategic stakes, and targeted investments in data and infrastructure—offers a model for how a leading platform can drive durable growth while fostering innovation and collaboration across a dynamic ecosystem.
