Animoca Brands and its subsidiary Bacasable Global have secured $20 million in convertible promissory notes, valuing the company at $1 billion. Investors have the option to convert these notes into equity.
Leading the funding round were Kingsway Capital, LG Tech Ventures, and True Global Ventures. Holders of the promissory notes can convert them into Bacasable Global’s equity under the same terms as existing preference shares.
This latest funding round comes after The Sandbox initially aimed to raise $400 million at a $4 billion valuation nearly two years ago. The funds will be used to enhance the creator economy and support the development of the decentralized mobile metaverse platform set to launch in 2025.
The Sandbox plans to introduce new social features, avatar skills, and improvements to its Game Maker and VoxEdit 3D editing tools. Additionally, the platform will introduce a new multiplayer rules system to enhance gameplay options. The beta version is expected to go live in 2024, with a full release scheduled for 2025.
Despite initial skepticism, The Sandbox has seen significant growth since the launch of its Alpha version in November 2023. Over 1,000 user-generated experiences have been created, and the platform now boasts 5.7 million user accounts linked to cryptocurrency wallets.
Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands, highlighted the importance of digital property rights in popular games like Minecraft and Roblox. He believes The Sandbox represents the evolution of user-generated content games in the digital ownership age.
With McKinsey & Company projecting the metaverse economy to reach $5 trillion by 2030, The Sandbox is well-positioned to capitalize on this growing market. While other major metaverse projects have struggled to gain traction post-bull run, The Sandbox has reported significant growth, with over 330,000 unique creators downloading its Game Maker tool in the past year.
In contrast to Meta’s underwhelming user numbers for its metaverse project, The Sandbox continues to attract a growing user base and remains optimistic about the future of the metaverse industry.
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