Key Takeaways
- Fenix Games will create a game publishing company targeting mainstreaming blockchain games.
- The funds raised will be spent on acquiring, investing, and distributing blockchain games.
Leading Web3 game publisher Fenix Games raised $150 million to create a game publishing company targeting mainstreaming blockchain games. The funds raised will be spent on acquiring, investing, and distributing blockchain games.
Commenting on the latest development, Chris Ko, CEO and co-founder of Fenix Games, stated, “You can think of us as like a VC fund.” Detailing present market conditions for Web3 games, Ko notes, “The market is similar to earlier [mobile gaming at the rise of free-to-play games], but it hasn’t found its Clash of Clans for blockchain games yet.”
Talking about fund utilization, Ko stated, “We are using the VC arm to fund the next generation of games. We’re going to start with a huge capital base to invest in those studios. We are also looking to use the balance sheet to acquire a bunch of existing games in the Web2 space to build a portfolio. And that will be the right base for our portfolio.”
Per the official announcement, Fenix Games’ strategy will be to marry game market economies and live operations to provide publishing services to all game models, including premium, free to play, and blockchain gaming across various platforms. The latest funding round witnessed participation from big industry names including Phoenix Group and Dubai-based venture capital firm Cypher Capital.
GameFi has been getting increasingly popular in recent times. One striking example of GameFi’s immense popularity is the well-known game Axie Infinity, the token price of which rose above $150 last fall, providing the project with a capitalization exceeding $9 billion.
The crypto gaming industry generated an estimated $321 million in revenue in 2020 and later exploded in 2021. The no: of games played on blockchains has increased by 22,000% in the first quarter of 2021. This is equivalent to 52% of all blockchain activities, according to analytics firm DappRadar’s report.
At the beginning of 2022, the market capitalization of blockchain games was approximately $25 billion. According to DappRadar, the two most stable areas in 2022 in the crypto market are blockchain games and NFTs.
