Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd (ASX:AB1) has entered into an agreement to acquire independent mobile game company Pixowl, Inc for a total upfront consideration of about $6.65 million.
About $709,133 will be paid in cash and the remaining will be paid via the issue of Animoca shares at 7.9 cents each.
Pixowl is headquartered in San Francisco, USA, with development studios in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The gaming company is focused on developing and publishing world builder games, the largest of which is the original intellectual property The Sandbox.
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The Sandbox is among the world’s largest independent user-generated content platforms and gaming ecosystems, with 40 million downloads and over one million monthly active users.
Pixowl generated about $2.46 million in revenue in the first half of 2018.
The company is currently developing a blockchain version of The Sandbox and will leverage the capabilities of Animoca Brands and partners like HTC and Dapper Labs (CryptoKitties).
Pixowl is also planning to launch the world’s first marketplace for user-generated non-fungible tokens (NFTs), where players will trade game assets.
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Animoca Brands co-founder and director Yat Siu said: “Our acquisition of Pixowl provides powerful strategic and operational synergies with Animoca Brands.
“Pixowl’s experienced developers will significantly increase our development capabilities.
“Pixowl shares our vision of blockchain gaming, NFT's, and games as a platform. Like us, it has a number of world-renowned brand licenses, including Snoopy and Goosebumps.
“We look forward to utilising the many opportunities for growth conferred by this acquisition.”