Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd (ASX:AB1) has entered into an agreement with Sky Mavis to acquire about $610,000 worth of Sky Mavis shares in exchange for cash and shares in Animoca.
Sky Mavis is a blockchain game developer based in Singapore and Vietnam, well-known for its blockchain pet game Axie Infinity.
The game developer has raised a total of about $2.13 million from Animoca, as lead investor, as well as from Hashed, Pangea Blockchain Fund, ConsenSys, and 500 Startups.
Blockchain focus
Sky Mavis will use the funds to accelerate the development of Axie Infinity to include more features and to continue pushing the blockchain gaming industry forward.
Animoca has also signed a collaboration memorandum of understanding with Sky Mavis to explore opportunities to market and promote each other’s products to their respective platforms and networks, as well as to engage in discussions to publish Sky Mavis’s products in various markets.
Animoca co-founder and chairman Yat Siu said: “We are very pleased and honoured to invest in and work with Sky Mavis, who has built up Axie Infinity into one of the most successful and popular blockchain games on the market.
“We look forward to a fruitful relationship.”
Axie Infinity
In Axie Infinity, players can battle, raise, evolve, and trade fantasy creatures called Axies, which are visual representations of NFTs owned by the players.
Each Axie has its own distinct look and attributes, and cannot be replicated.
Axie Infinity launched in early 2018, and it is now one of the highest-grossing blockchain games, with over $1.6 million in sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Its in-house marketplace has processed over 25,000 transactions with a total value of about $2.62 million.
Axie Infinity has partnered with Samsung, Klaytn (the blockchain project of Kakao), MakerDAO, and Loom Network.
Sky Mavis plans to release a new card game set in the Axie Infinity universe, with launch expected in the first half of 2020.