Animoca Brands Raises $20M to Pursue ‘Single Native Web3 Project’ Mocaverse

Despite cooling interest in the metaverse, Animoca Brands has closed a $20 million funding round, primarily targeting the introduction of metaverse project The Mocaverse.

Central to this metaverse is a set of 8,888 non-transferable NFTs, which offer exclusive access to the platform.

“The Mocaverse is a project that brings together the whole Animoca Brands ecosystem: shareholders, investee companies, team members, business partners, etc. in a single native Web3 project expressed through Mocaverse NFTs, which allow the holders to accrue loyalty points and identify them accordingly,” Animoca Brands CEO Robby Yung told Decrypt.

Led by CMCC Global, the investment round saw participation from entities including Kingsway Capital, Liberty City Ventures, and GameFi Ventures. Individuals including Aleksander Larsen of Sky Mavis and Gabby Dizon of Yield Guild Games also joined the round.

As part of the agreement, investors were supplied with a free-attaching utility token warrant on a 1:1 dollar basis with a 30-month vesting schedule.

The Moca ID

In the Mocaverse ecosystem, participants can maintain a unified identity, known as a “Moca ID,” across multiple Animoca Brands platforms using soulbound tokens.

These non-transferable NFTs will authenticate users’ on-chain identities, ensuring their integration into the Mocaverse ecosystem.

The collection consists of 8,888 NFTs, depicting characters called Mocas. These characters hail from one of five tribes: “Dreamers,” “Builders,” “Angels,” “Connectors,” and “Neo-Capitalists.” Each tribe symbolizes distinct archetypes of Web3 changemakers.

Owners of a Moca ID will gain special access to Mocaverse experiences and can accumulate loyalty points through active participation.

“It’s a way not just for us to connect with those who are closest to us, but more importantly for us to help facilitate connections between those in our ecosystem,” Yung told Decrypt.

The funding round comes on the heels of Animoca’s 2022 performance metrics, which report the company’s bookings reached $594 million in 2022, up $160 million on the previous year.

Animoca also reported the acquisition of six enterprises, as well as the launch of operations in the Japanese market.