Animoca Brands’ subsidiary, The Sandbox, raises $20M via convertible notes, valuing the platform at $1B.
Animoca Brands and its subsidiary Bacasable Global Limited, which administers the popular metaverse platform The Sandbox, have raised $20 million in convertible promissory notes at a valuation of $1 billion.
LG Tech Ventures and True Global Ventures were among the investors who participated in the funding round, which was spearheaded by Kingsway Capital. The proprietors of the promissory notes have the option to convert them into Bacasable Global Limited’s equity on the same terms as the existing preference shares.
It has been nearly two years since The Sandbox intended to raise $400 million at a $4 billion valuation in its most recent funding round, which was conducted at a billion-dollar valuation.
The Sandbox stated in its official announcement that the most recent funding round would be allocated to the development of its decentralized mobile metaverse platform, which is anticipated to be launched in 2025, and the expansion of the creator economy.
In addition to upgrading its Game Maker and VoxEdit 3D editing tools, The Sandbox plans to incorporate new social features and avatar abilities, which are among its most notable applications.
The new multiplayer rules system, which is expected to be deployed in beta later this year and for general release in 2025, was promised by the metaverse platform to expand the range of gameplay options.
Over 1,000 user-generated experiences have been created since the Alpha iteration of The Sandbox was launched in November 2023. The platform has 5.7 million user accounts that are associated with cryptocurrency purses.
According to Yat Siu, the co-founder of Animoca Brands, numerous renowned games, including Roblox and Minecraft, which have millions of daily users, do not provide their users with digital property rights. He further stated that The Sandbox is “the evolution of UGC games for the age of digital ownership.”
McKinsey, an investment management firm, anticipates that the metaverse economy will expand to $5 trillion by 2030. Despite the initial excitement surrounding the concept, which resulted in a complete brand overhaul by Facebook, the metaverse’s pivot has not been able to attract users in the wake of the bull market.
In 2022, Meta’s metaverse initiative, which cost $1.2 billion, had a mere 38 daily users, according to a report.
The Sandbox has reported the addition of over 330,000 unique creators who have downloaded The Sandbox’s no-code Game Maker in the past 12 months, even though major metaverse projects are struggling to acquire traction following the bear market of 2022-23.
