The Sandbox Raises $93M in Round Led by Softbank

The Sandbox becomes the latest blockchain based game to raise money in an effort to scale the metaverse to hundreds of millions of users.

article-image

Iceland; Source: The Sandbox

share

key takeaways

  • The Sandbox, subsidiary of Hong-Kong based Animoca Brands, announced this morning that it has secured $93 million in a Series B led by Softbank Vision 2 Fund
  • NFT funding growth has been remarkable over the last 12 months, with a growth rate of 6,523% year-over-year and total funding of over $2 billion in 2021

The Sandbox (SAND), the leading open NFT metaverse platform, announced today that it has secured $93 million in a Series B fundraising round led by Softbank Vision 2 Fund, marking the fund’s first investment in crypto assets. 

The news comes shortly after Facebook announced its rebranding to ‘Meta’, sending gaming/metaverse tokens soaring over the last week. 

“Facebook is trying to claim the term metaverse. While it’s great to see the term going mainstream, the company has historically monetized peoples’ data and taken ownership away from the users. At The Sandbox, we are aiming to create an open metaverse where users get to own the platform they use,” Sebastian Borget, co-founder and chief operating officer of The Sandbox, told Blockworks. 

Additional investors in the round included Animoca Brands, True Global Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, SCB 10X, Polygon Studios, Samsung Next and more.

SAND was last trading at $2.64, up roughly 225% over the last seven days. 

Nansen data shows that 80% of the supply has been held for one to two years and new wallet addresses holding the SAND token has recently gone parabolic:

The Sandbox
Source: Nansen

As one of the largest destinations for entertainment in the metaverse, The Sandbox has experienced massive growth in 2021. It plans to use the funds to scale the platform and keep up with demand from users as artists seek out new ways to strengthen their brands and engage with their fanbases. 

Snoop Dogg is one of the high-profile names to take part in The Sandbox metaverse after launching tickets to a private event which can be found on the popular NFT marketplace, OpenSea, for more than $5,800 per ticket. 

The Sandbox now has over 500,000 registered wallets and 12,000 unique virtual LAND owners, and generated over US$144 million in lifetime gross merchandise volume, according to a company press release. 

Some of the well-known LAND owners in The Sandbox include the Winklevoss twins, Stephen Curry endorsed Bored Ape Yacht Club, Binance and many others. 

“The Sandbox aims to bring blockchain into mainstream gaming, attracting both crypto and non-crypto game enthusiasts by offering the advantages of true-ownership, digital scarcity, monetization capabilities, and interoperability” according to The Sandbox whitepaper

NFT funding booms

NFT funding growth has been remarkable over the last 12 months, with a growth rate of 6,523% year-over-year. Funding for NFT based projects is now over $2 billion for 2021, while 90% of the deals have been early-stage ventures according to a report from CB Insights. 

The report also showed that the third quarter of 2021 marked a record quarter in terms of both the number of deals and gross dollar amount invested as seen in the chart below:

More money for the metaverse

Separately in metaverse news, Sanctor Capital, a blockchain-focused investment firm, also raised $20 million for its inaugural fund which will in part focus on GameFi and cross-chain infrastructure projects.

According to a company press release, Sanctor launched a Y-Combinator style mentorship program that was custom-tailored to bring projects to market with the help of domain experts from industry-leading organizations such as The Sandbox. 

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

kamino cover.jpg

Research

Kamino has solidified its position as the leading money market on Solana and is emerging as a DeFi bluechip. Although DeFi competition is fierce, Kamino has kept iterating on its product to provide the best-in-class UX, paired with a robust risk management framework and battle-tested infrastructure. Given the rollout of Kamino Lend V2, the protocol may scale aggressively over the coming months, penetrating previously untapped markets in Solana DeFi.

article-image

Also in the tokenized fund space, Franklin Templeton launches on Base and Securitize hits $1 billion in tokenized RWA onchain

article-image

It turns out that bitcoin never actually hit an all-time high in March. Thanks a lot, inflation.

article-image

Spire, Citrea and Nillion also announced raises this week

article-image

The latest recipient of an SEC Wells notice is a Web3 gaming company

article-image

Thursday’s selloff was led by tech stocks, triggered by disappointing outlooks from giants Meta and Microsoft

article-image

Historically, positive returns have been a bit more of a toss-up during the year’s 11th month