What started as a small mobile game development company has transformed into a digital entertainment behemoth and a true behemoth of the blockchain industry.
That company is Animoca Brands.
From technology and gaming to NFTs, collectibles, infrastructure, and more, the Animoca brand has been instrumental in many of the major developments in blockchain over the past decade. What is Animoca Brands, who is it involved with, and what impact will it have in the future?
Here's our complete guide to the Animoca brand in 2024.
What is the Animoka brand?
Animoca Brands was founded in 2014 by Yat Siu, a visionary entrepreneur and angel investor. Born and raised in Vienna, Austria, he held senior positions at Atari Germany and Lexicor before founding Hong Kong Cybercity, a free web page and email provider, in 1996 and founding Outblaze, a web services company acquired by IBM. and left his name behind.
Animoca is based in Hong Kong and specializes in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gaming. Its mission is to promote ownership of digital assets and contribute to the development of an open metaverse.
Under Yat Siu's leadership, Animoca Brands has grown into a major player in blockchain and Web3 gaming. Yat Siu has been recognized as a Global Leader of Tomorrow and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and is recognized for his business acumen.
Animoca Brands is best known for its range of proprietary products and notable investments. They are behind the likes of Mocaverse, The Sandbox and REVV Racing, as well as boasting over 380 investments in Web3 projects including names like Axie Infinity, OpenSea and Pudgy Penguins.
Animoca brand history
Animoca Brands was founded in 2014 and initially focused on developing mobile games. Many of the early titles, such as Pretty Pet Salon and Cinderella Cafe, were notable successes.
Early funding from prominent venture capital firms such as Intel Capital and IDG-Accel allowed Animoca to scale rapidly, and by 2017 Animoca decided to incorporate blockchain technology into its products. did. As one of the first major institutional investors in the space, the company acquired game developer Pixowl in 2018 and launched The Sandbox, known as one of the first Metaverse titles.
Fast forward to 2020, and Animoca Brands has grown into an industry giant. They became a venture capital firm in their own right, providing seed funding and partnerships to many startup teams that would go on to create essential tools for the initial NFT boom in 2021, such as OpenSea.
This success has led to recognition, with Animoca recognized by the Financial Times as a High Growth Company in Asia Pacific and awarded the prestigious Deloitte Tech Fast Award.
In recent years, the company has further expanded its role in the blockchain ecosystem. They introduced Mocaverse NFT in March 2023, followed by the Moca ID and Realm Points (RP) system to strengthen engagement among the community and start a new trend in user rewards. They released the long-awaited $MOCA token in May 2024, tokenizing the ecosystem and providing an easy way for the broader community to participate in development.
Currently, Animoca Brands serves as a funding source, advisor, and practical assistant for those looking to build with or integrate blockchain technology into their products. I'm doing it.
They have been heavily involved in many of the most popular projects, tools, and services. This includes games like The Sandbox and Axie Infinity, NFT collectors like Pudgy Penguins and our own Mocaverse, and infrastructure tools like the NFT marketplace OpenSea.
Their fingerprints can also be found in many of the projects that have achieved mainstream success. The most notable example of this is our support for Dapper Labs, the studio behind sports collectible platforms NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day.
What’s next for Animoca Brands?
2025 is set to be Animoca Brands' biggest year yet.
In July 2024, Animoca Brands Chairman Yat Siu said the company aims to go public in the second half of 2025, opening the company to the public market for the first time since 2020. As the cryptocurrency and NFT markets will boom in late 2024, this could prove to be a suitable way for ordinary people and traditional investors to access the Animoca ecosystem.
$MOCA will play a key role in the company's future and community engagement efforts. Mocaverse continues to receive significant funding, and Animoca is poised to make Mocaverse the go-to identity, account, and reputation system across the Web3 industry.
Projects like The Sandbox continue to grow, with a renewed interest in Metaverse projects especially in recent months, and a growing portfolio of external investments, no doubt for many years to come. It will shape the blockchain industry.
At the heart of Animoca are two goals. Advancing the concept of digital asset rights and making an open metaverse a reality. In 2025, Animoca could be on the verge of making both of these goals a reality.