Axie Infinity Developer raises $152 million at $3 billion valuation

Sky Mavis, the game studio behind the best blockchain game Axie Infinity, announced Tuesday that it has raised $152 million in a Series B funding round.

Sky Mavis, the game developer behind the NFT-based game Axie Infinity, has raised $152 million in a Series B funding round. The increase estimates the company’s value at more than $3 billion.

In a statement on Tuesday, blockchain game studio Sky Mavis announced that it had raised $152 million to “create economic freedom for gamers.” Notable investors involved in funding include global crypto-exchange giant FTX, venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Accel, Standard crypto, Fabric Ventures and Samsung Next.

Sky Mavis stated that it will use the funds to expand its reach and continue to expand without tapping into its AXS token reserves, adding:

“This new funding round will allow us to fuel the play for profit revolution, bring in incredible talent from around the world, expand our infrastructure for expected growth, and build our distribution platforms to support game developers to create games that support NFT.”

The company has defended its play-for-earning gaming model with its now popular blockchain game, Axie Infinity. With approximately $784 million in total revenue generated, the game is currently one of the most profitable protocols in crypto – second only to Ethereum – with total revenue over $2 billion. Moreover, the current fully diluted Axie Infinity native AXS token has a current fully diluted market capitalization of nearly $36 billion, making it the fifth largest game by market capitalization behind legacy companies like Blizzard, Nintendo, Roblox, and EA.

In a separate statement, popular venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which led the Series B funding round for Sky Mavis, said:

“Thanks to team tenacity, hard work, innovation, and a firm commitment to its mission, Axie Infinity is now the fastest growing game in the world. As a result, Sky Mavis and Axie Infinity have brought for-profit gameplay into the mainstream, completely redefining the gaming category in the process. “.

Apart from Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis wants to allocate a portion of the newly raised funds to launch Ronin, a decentralized exchange for in-game token trading. Ronin is an Ethereum side chain built by Sky Mavis. It serves as an expansion solution for “digital nations”. The chain has a combined total value of $4.5 billion locked across 2 million wallets.