Immutable Earmarks $500M Fund for Gaming, Web3 Development
The company’s goal is to foster mass adoption of gaming, collectibles, music and sports NFTs
Blockworks exclusive art by axel rangel
key takeaways
- The new fund seeks to establish co-funds with VC partners and issuing grants to developers
- GameFi Investment in the first half of 2022 has reached $3.7 billion, up 99% year over year
Layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution Immutable plans to launch a $500 million fund to allocate token grants and investments into the Immutable X protocol with the two-fold intention of incentivizing game developers and spurring user adoption of Web3 projects building on the platform.
The fund, which is a mix of both cash and Immutable X’s native token IMX, combines assets from Animoca Brands, GameStop and VC firms such as Airtree, BITKRAFT, Arrington Capital, Double Peak and King River Capital.
From meeting funding requirements for scaling projects to designating a milestone-based IMX vesting schedule, the focus is on developers.
Current gaming developers and intellectual property holders on Immutable X include TikTok, Illuvium, Ember Sword, GreenPark Sports, ESL, Gary Vee’s Vee Friends, Playco and GameStop, which launched its NFT marketplace via the platform.
The Immutable Developer and Venture Fund also plans to provide partnering game studios with advisory support when it comes to the NFT (non-fungible token) gaming world, tokenomics, game design, community and marketing.
“We’re taking the lessons learned from building two of the blockchain’s biggest games — Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians — and hiring the smartest people from Web2 studios like Riot Games,” Immutable CEO James Ferguson said in a statement.
The scaling solution’s other co-founder and president, Robbie Ferguson, added that “gaming is bigger than movies and music combined, and is compounding by 10% every year” with the potential of growing into a trillion dollar ownable economy over the next decade.
In terms of volume for the week gone by, the Harmony blockchain-based game DeFi Kingdoms takes the crown, peaking on June 12 at over $17 million transacted within the game, according to Footprint Analytics. Gaming and decentralized finance (GameFi) fundraising remains steady, up 0.8% month over month, with a total of $7.7 billion raised.
Immutable previously told Blockworks that the company anticipates to continue “aggressive” hiring, thanks to more than four years of funding runway. In March, the Australian unicorn raised $200 million in a series C fundraising round led by Temasek, bringing its valuation to $2.5 billion.
Founded in partnership with StarkWare in 2018, Immutable incorporates StarkWare’s StarkEx zero-knowledge proof technology to roll up thousands of transactions on its own network and commit them to Ethereum with a single transaction.
On Thursday, Immutable announced a corporate rebrand that includes an updated logo to more clearly differentiate between Immutable, Immutable X and the Immutable Studio, the company said.
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