Animoca Brands Corp., a Hong Kong-based blockchain game maker and venture capitalist, has scaled down the target amount for its Web 3.0 and metaverse investment fund to US$1 billion from the initial goal of up to US$2 billion, according to Bloomberg.
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Fast facts
- The company is raising around US$1 billion for its new Web3 fund within Q1 of this year, Animoca Chairman Yat Siu said during a Twitter Spaces chat hosted by Bloomberg.
- The fund, Animoca Capital, aims to support the growth of startups in Web3, or the next generation of internet technology focused on decentralization, often through blockchain.
- The collapse of the Bahamas-based bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.com, severely hit about a dozen of Animoca’s investments, including the long-awaited non-fungible token (NFT) game, Star Atlas, Siu said, according to Bloomberg.
- Despite the shock from FTX, Siu said several Animoca subsidiaries have raised capital, and the interest in crypto still exists.
- “The biggest damage with FTX was not so much financial … it was more of a reputational damage and an institutional damage, and in particular, an institutional American damage,” Siu said in a December interview with Forkast.
- FTX, once the world’s second-largest exchange, filed for bankruptcy in November after revelations of misappropriation and poor disclosure of company assets, affecting other major crypto players such as Genesis and Gemini.
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