Sky Mavis has concluded an investment round for its Axie Infinity game, that now values the company at $3 billion and puts Axie at $30 billion.
Sky Mavis, the developer of Axie Infinity, a popular crypto-based online game, is raising $150 million in a Series B funding round. According to reports, the funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz, values the blockchain-enabled, play-to-earn game at about $30 billion. The valuation puts Axie among the ‘top five most valuable video game organizations in the world’ according to crypto research company Messari.
Axie Infinity’s native token, the AXS token, earns about $28.9 million in weekly revenue. This amounts to approximately $1.5 billion in annual revenue, according to Token Terminal. This represents a climb of over 2,500% since July 1st. Furthermore, Axie’s active user account reached 1.85 million users on Monday, indicating a 4,500% increase since April.
Sky Mavis is now valued at $3 billion owing to the recent investment round. The company referred to Axie Infinity as a “…nation with a real economy.”
Axie Infinity, which uses non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to reward players, realized 64,933.71 ETH ($220.32 million) in revenue for September. The revenue generated was significantly way off its record high of $342 million back in August, according to Axie World. However, September’s revenue is still indicative of an approximately 3000-fold YoY growth.
According to Crunchbase, Axie Infinity’s most recent fundraising outing was a $7.5 million Series A announced on May 11th 2021. Libertus Capital was the lead investor in that round, with supporting roles from a few known names. These investors include Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Other participants were the Collaborative Fund and 500 Startups Vietnam. Going even further back, Axie Infinity had a seed round announced on November 7th 2019. Mobile game publisher Animoca Brands was the lead investor in that round, which generated $1.5 million for Axie Infinity.
Sky Mavis and Axie Infinity Riding High on the Recent NFT and Gaming Craze
Launched by Sky Mavis three years ago, Axie Infinity finally began to attract mass attention in early Q3 2021. This resulted from falling yields in BTC and DeFi which resulted in exponential investments in gaming and NFTs. Today, Axie Infinity serves as a significant source of income in countries like Brazil, the Philippines, Venezuela, and Vietnam. In fact, its popularity is so high in the Philippines that the government is contemplating taxing Axie players.
On Monday, AXS, attained a record high after recently announcing plans to reward its early adopters. The company said it would distribute more than $60 million worth of tokens to early adopters. In addition to this, it also plans to launch staking capabilities.
The blockchain ‘metaverse’ is fast becoming the main source of income for some people. This is especially so where banking services are proving expensive and almost inaccessible. Other companies are gradually beginning to venture into the metaverse too. For instance, social media giant Facebook announced that it will invest $50 million in global metaverse research for future products. Also, Iluvium, a crypto-based RPG game valued at $5 billion, recently went into partnership with Deathroad, a metaverse racing game.
Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.
