Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd has entered an exclusive worldwide joint venture (JV) with Aquis Farm, one of the world’s largest racehorse and equestrian businesses, to bring the physical equestrian world into the metaverse.
The new JV will develop metaverse products, games and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) directly related to real-world activities and assets including the horses themselves, horse racing, show jumping and other equestrian sports such as rodeo events.
Aquis Champions Tour, an international show jumping event.
Bringing horses to the metaverse
Animoca brands executive chair and co-founder Yat Siu commented: “Few animals can boast a more rich and distinguished relationship with humans than horses.
“As our friends during times of both war and peace, horses have been an important part of human civilisation, history, and legend for thousands of years.
“We are absolutely thrilled to introduce that corpus of culture into the metaverse through our partnership with Aquis, which is one of the global leaders in the breeding and racing of champion horses.”
Aquis stallion, Pierata, won races at the highest level in Australia.
Under the terms of the JV, Aquis Farm will be responsible for providing real-world equestrian intellectual property, commercial opportunities and conceptual development of equestrian NFT ecosystems and metaverses.
Animoca Brands will be responsible for the development, marketing and sales of NFTs, NFT race products, metaverse games, and generally bringing the equestrian world to blockchain.
“The opportunities are endless”
Aquis Farm co-founder and chair Justin Fung commented: “This joint venture will enable Aquis Farm to partner with a world leader in digital entertainment, blockchain and gamification to bring real-world equestrian concepts, business ideas and assets to the decentralised finance world and the metaverse. The opportunities are endless.
“Whilst Aquis Farm will remain heavily committed to the physical equestrian world, the future cannot be ignored.
“Aquis recognises the inevitability of the growth of a digital and decentralised world and will be at its forefront to leverage the equestrian and other forthcoming opportunities of the metaverse.
“In Animoca Brands, we believe we have found a well-capitalised cutting-edge partner for this new and exciting digital world.”
Given the importance of tracing lineage, welfare and sale records within the equestrian world, the JV partners believe the application of blockchain is highly relevant to the industry. Blockchain and especially smart contracts also have very high applicability to investment in equestrian assets and the trade of horses according to the companies.
Aquis Farm is a world-class, 447-hectare thoroughbred breeding facility at Canungra, in the Gold Coast hinterland, in Queensland
About the companies
Animoca Brands is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain and gamification that is driving digital property rights via NFTs and gaming to help build the open metaverse.
It develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including the REVV token and SAND token; original games and products utilising hundreds of popular intellectual properties.
Animoca Brands has a growing portfolio of more than 100 investments in NFT-related companies and decentralised projects that are contributing to building the open metaverse, including Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Bitski, Harmony, Alien Worlds, Star Atlas, and others.
Aquis Farm and the Fung family are leading racehorse owners in Australia, Hong Kong, Europe and the USA owning more than 40 graded winners in the last four years and standing at Stud more than 20 stallions across Australia.
Aquis Farm is also a major sponsor of the Aquis Park Gold Coast Turf Club and the Aquis Farm Elysian Fields Equestrian complex which hosts racehorses, showjumpers, polo horses and other equestrian events and assets. For more information visit https://www.aquisfarm.com.