The Sandbox Parent Animoca to Debut Metaverse Fund of $2 Billion

Animoca co-founder and Executive Chairman, Yat Siu, spoke about the fund plans during a recent interview.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Richa Sharma | Updated: 2 December 2022 17:04 IST

Photo Credit: Animoca Brands

Animoca co-founder Yat Sui has expressed confidence in the future and potential of Web3

Highlights

Animoca is known or interest in metaverse industry
Metaverse has bagged funds from several international entities
Animoca has purchased several game firms to grow its gaming ecosystem

Animoca Brands, the parent body of The Sandbox metaverse, is ready to dive deeper into the virtual universe sector. The Hong Kong-based blockchain firm is planning to unveil a mega-fund of $2 billion (roughly Rs. 16,260 crore), dedicated to the metaverse business. Animoca co-founder and Executive Chairman, Yat Siu, spoke about the ideas for the fund during a recent interview while speaking about the company's plans for 2023. The metaverse technology has been gaining a lot of investments in the recent times.

The fund pool is intended to accelerate the development of immersive metaverse projects and create a genuine, active market. As of now, Animoca has not raised the whopping amount.

As per Nikkei Asia's report, Sui is aware that the ongoing crypto market slump may not be the ideal time to raise the hefty funding, however, he remains hopeful that the markets would jump back to health soon again.

Stripe Launches ‘Fiat to Crypto’ Service to Assist Web3 Companies Facilitate Payments

"More people are joining crypto every day, especially in gaming," Sui was quoted as saying.

Animoca's metaverse gaming project The Sandbox shot to fame for offering virtual land plots to the players, who can choose to decorate their properties with NFTs and host guests as well as virtual events.

"The long-term goal for us, and frankly for myself, is creating a way where we all have digital property rights. I'm hoping that this will also drive a scenario where digital property will be recognised like physical property in the legal system,” Sui added.

Italy Wants to Levy a 26 Percent Tax on Crypto Profits Exceeding $2,000

Animoca has been trying to make metaverse-related development and activities interoperable among separate platforms. To achieve this, the firm launched a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) called the Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3 (OMA3) in July this year.

Research reports suggest that there is a market opportunity for the metaverse to reach $800 billion (roughly Rs. 59,58,700 crore) over the next two years.

In the backdrop of this promising future, the metaverse sector has been bagging funds in several parts of the world.

For instance, in February, Seoul's Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning of South Korea allocated KRW 223.7 billion (roughly Rs. 1,400 crore) towards the development of a national metaverse project.

Later in March, chipmaker Qualcomm set aside a fund of $100 million (roughly Rs. 760 crore), called the Snapdragon Metaverse Fund, hoping to accelerate the development of Extended Reality technology.

Metaverse also reeled-in a $30 million (roughly Rs. 240 crore) funding from Invesco, an investment management giant headquartered in Atlanta, US, in August this year.

What are the best smartphones you can buy in India in 2022? These are the phones we think stood out the most this year Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Further reading: Cryptocurrency, The Sandbox, Animoca, Metaverse, Web3

Radhika Parashar

Email Radhika

Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More