What started as a humble mobile game development company has transformed into a massive player in digital entertainment – and a true juggernaut of the blockchain industry.
That company is Animoca Brands.
From technology and gaming to NFTs, collectibles, infrastructure and more, Animoca Brands have played a part in a significant number of the major developments in blockchain over the past decade. What is Animoca Brands, who are they involved with, and what impact will they have in future?
Here’s our complete 2024 guide to Animoca Brands.
What is Animoca Brands?
Animoca Brands was founded in 2014 by Yat Siu, a visionary entrepreneur and angel investor. Born and raised in Vienna, Austria, he held key positions at Atari Germany and Lexicor before making his mark by founding free webpage and email provider Hong Kong Cybercity in 1996, and founding web services company Outblaze, which was acquired by IBM.
Based in Hong Kong, Animoca specializes in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gaming. Its mission is to advance digital asset ownership, and contribute to the development of an open metaverse.
Under Yat Siu’s leadership, Animoca Brands has developed into a major player in blockchain and Web3 gaming. Yat Siu has been recognized as a Global Leader of Tomorrow and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and he is highly-regarded for his business acumen.
Animoca Brands is best-known for its series of in-house products and notable investments. They are behind the likes of the Mocaverse, The Sandbox and REVV Racing, alongside boasting over 380 investments in Web3 projects, including names such as Axie Infinity, OpenSea, and Pudgy Penguins.
The history of Animoca Brands
Animoca Brands was established in 2014, initially focusing on developing mobile games. Many of their early titles saw notable success, such as Pretty Pet Salon and Cinderella Cafe.
Early funding from prominent venture capital firms like Intel Capital and IDG-Accel allowed them to expand rapidly, and by 2017, Animoca took the decision to start incorporating blockchain technology into their products. As one of the first major institutional players in the space, they acquired game developers Pixowl in 2018 and launched The Sandbox – noted as one of the very first metaverse titles.
Fast-forward to 2020, and Animoca Brands had grown into a giant of the industry. They became a venture capital firm in their own right, offering seed funding and partnerships to many emerging teams that would go on to create tools that were essential to the first NFT boom in 2021, such as OpenSea.
With this success came recognition, and Animoca is recognised by the Financial Times as a High Growth Company in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as a winner of the prestigious Deloitte Tech Fast award.
In recent years, the company has further expanded its role in the blockchain ecosystem. They introduced their Mocaverse NFTs in March 2023, followed by the Moca ID and Realm Points (RP) systems, enhancing cross-community engagement and kicking-off new trends in user rewards. They released their long-awaited $MOCA token in May 2024, tokenizing their ecosystem and giving the wider community an easier way to get involved in their developments.
Today, Animoca Brands acts as a source of funding, an advisor, and hands-on assistants for those looking to build with or integrate blockchain technology into their products.
They have had major involvement in many of the most popular projects, tools and services. This includes games such as The Sandbox and Axie Infinity, NFT collectibles such as Pudgy Penguins and their own Mocaverse, and infrastructure tools such as NFT marketplace OpenSea.
Their fingerprints can also be found on many of the projects that have seen mainstream success. The most notable example of this is their support of Dapper Labs, the studio behind sports collectible platforms NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day.
What’s next for Animoca Brands?
2025 is set to be the biggest year for Animoca Brands to date.
In July 2024, Chairman of Animoca Brands Yat Siu stated that the company would seek a public listing in the second half of 2025, opening the company up to public markets for the first time since 2020. With the crypto and NFT markets booming in late 2024, this could prove to be an apt way for everyday folk and traditional investors to access the Animoca ecosystem.
$MOCA is set to play a major role in the future of the company and its cross-community engagement efforts. The Mocaverse continues to be heavily funded, with Animoca looking to make Mocaverse the go-to identity, account, and reputation system across the Web3 industry.
Projects like The Sandbox continue to grow – especially with revitalised interest in metaverse projects in recent months – and their portfolio of external investment continues to grow, no doubt shaping the blockchain industry for years to come.
At the heart of Animoca lay two goals; to further the concept of digital asset rights, and to make the open metaverse a reality. In 2025, Animoca could be on the way to making both of these goals a reality.
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