The Australian NFT scaling platform – Immutable – introduced an inaugural $500 million developer and venture investment fund. The financing will be distributed to companies developing the Web3 ecosystem and non-fungible token (NFT) projects.
The Half-Billion-Dollar Fund
In a recent interview for TechCrunch, Robbie Ferguson – Co-Founder and President of Immutable – asserted that the company’s primary goal is to integrate innovations in the Web3 gaming sector. As such, the firm will allocate the $500 million fund to developers that build blockchain-based games and NFT startups.
“We see gaming being one of the biggest opportunities in Web3 to have ever existed. The total addressable market is going to be enormous and much bigger than what gaming is today – a $100 billion industry for in-game items alone,” Ferguson stated.
Moreover, the executive believes the sector could be worth $1 trillion in the future, assuming that the film and music industry show interest and join its ecosystem.
The fund in question was amassed from venture partners of Immutable and cash backed on the firm’s balance sheet:
“There’s obviously all our venture partners who are using their balance sheets and VC allocations to come in on these deals, there’s cash-backed on [Immutable’s] balance sheet, and there’s also the foundation’s grants, which are specifically designed for this purpose to incentivize and build the Immutable ecosystem.”
Prominent investors like Animoca Brands, GameStop, BITKRAFT, Arrington Capital, and Double Peak also collaborated on the financing.
Ferguson believes that in the following years, middle-sized gaming studios will catch up and become the fastest-growing companies in the market. As a result, additional blockchain-based games will join the Web3 universe:
“The main thing is that it takes time to integrate Web3 and takes time to build a good game. There’s going to be a huge influx of Web3 games in eight to 12 months, and there’s going to be hundreds of Triple-A games over the next few years.”
The Previous Fund
In March this year, Immutable closed a $200 million funding round led by the Singaporean investment giant Temasek. Other renowned investors, including Arrington Capital, Princeville Capital, and ParaFi Capital, took part, too.
Immutable said it will use the funds to expand its team and reinforce its gaming studio, which includes popular blockchain games like Guild of Guardians and Gods Unchained. The initiative boosted the company’s valuation to $2.5 billion.
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