Animoca Brands, along with its subsidiary Bacasable Global, the operator of the popular metaverse platform The Sandbox, has successfully secured $20 million through convertible promissory notes, valuing the company at $1 billion.
Investors who hold these notes have the option to convert them into equity in Bacasable Global, with the same terms as the existing preference shares. Leading the funding round are Kingsway Capital, LG Tech Ventures, and True Global Ventures.
This latest funding round, which values The Sandbox at a billion dollars, comes after the initial plan to raise $400 million at a $4 billion valuation two years ago. The funds raised will be used to bolster the creator economy and support the upcoming launch of the decentralized mobile metaverse platform scheduled for 2025.
The Sandbox’s plans include the addition of new social features, avatar skills, as well as enhancements to its Game Maker and VoxEdit 3D editing tools. The platform also aims to introduce a new multiplayer rules system to improve gameplay options, set to be released in beta in 2024 and fully launched in 2025.
Despite skepticism surrounding the metaverse concept, The Sandbox has seen significant growth since the Alpha version went live in November 2023. Over 1,000 user-generated experiences have been created, with 5.7 million user accounts connected to cryptocurrency wallets.
Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands, highlighted the importance of digital property rights in popular games like Minecraft and Roblox, stating that The Sandbox represents a new era of user-generated content games with digital ownership at its core.
While the metaverse economy is projected to reach $5 trillion by 2030, major projects have struggled to attract users post-bull run. Meta’s $1.2 billion metaverse project reportedly had only 38 daily users in 2022. In contrast, The Sandbox has seen a surge in creators, with over 330,000 unique users downloading the Game Maker tool in the past year.
As the metaverse continues to evolve, The Sandbox remains at the forefront of innovation, offering a platform that champions digital ownership and creativity.