Animoca Brands Leads $32M Funding of Gaming Company Planetarium Labs
- Gaming network provider Planetarium Labs has raised $32 million in a Series A round led by VC colossus Animoca Brands.
Singapore-based Web3 gaming network developer Planetarium Labs has raised $32 million in a Series A funding led by Animoca Brands.
The community-centric entity now plans on utilizing the funds to incorporate gaming, and player governance tools to its network, according to a statement by its co-founder and CEO, Kijun Seo.
Planetarium partners Samsung Next, and Krust Universe (the investment arm of South Korean tech giant Kakao) also participated in the funding round. Another contributor was WeMade – the game developer behind play-to-earn game Mir4.
Animoca Brands Leads Planetarium Labs Latest Funding Round
Of note, many blockchain game developers thrive on building their applications on existent blockchains. Differently, games created through Planetarium run on individual blockchains. The software development kit Libplanet enables the creation of blockchain-based gaming on the company’s Unity platform. As Seo explains, Planetarium’s unique arhitecture grants more flexibility to individual applications in terms of governance and tokenomics customization.
Currently, the Libplanet engine powers Nine Chronicles, a free-to-play open-source role playing game developed by Planetarium. Nine Chronicles boasts of over 300,000 users and prominent backers such as Animoca Brands, Binance Labs and Ubisoft. It plans on launching a new set of features next week in what is known as “Chapter 3.”
Apart from the Nine Chronicles, Planetarium is also “supporting the development of live-action collectible NFT (non-fungible token) RPG Stella Fantasy.” Seo says the NFT had a “major gameplay trailer reveal this week.”
Additionally, the company has partnered with XL Games to “explore community-governed MMORPGs.” XL Games is founded by Jake Song, creator of Lineage franchise and Nexon co-founder.
According to Seo, Planetarium plans on revealing more in-development games through its various partners later this quarter.
Investments
Animoca Brands is among the giant venture capitalists that are turning a keen eye on blockchain gaming, Web3, and the metaverse. The Hong Kong-based software company has invested in over 200 platforms, including The Sandbox and Axie Infinity.
As of January 18, the company was valued at $5.5 billion, having doubled the figure in less than three months. Its supporters include Liberty City Venture, and Winklevoss Capital. By the end of April, the company’s investments totaled to over $1.5 billion spread across 340 entities.
As its co-founder and CEO Yat Siu notes, Animoca is highly confident in a future of “decentralized worlds in an open metaverse.” This vision has propelled their funding in such investments, with the latest beneficiary being Planetarium Labs.
Rebecca is a Senior Staff Writer at BitcoinWisdom, working hard to bring you the latest breaking news in the cryptocurrency market. In the words of Elon Musk “Buy stock in several companies that make products & services that *you* believe in. Only sell if you think their products & services are trending worse. Don’t panic when the market does. This will serve you well in the long-term.”
