Today Mythical Games announced it raised a $150 million Series C round led by Andreessen Horowitz, just four months after its $75 million Series B. The company is both a game developer and created the Mythical Platform to enable others to develop blockchain games that use non-fungible token (NFT) assets and a play-to-earn model. This gives game players the ability to sell in-game assets or digital assets earned while playing.
Its first game is Blankos Block Party and earlier this week, it revealed its first game developer partners as Creative Mobile, CCG Lab and Abstraction Games.
“Players spend billions of dollars on digital assets each year, but the value of their collections has been locked away from them. Utilizing NFTs in gaming creates a whole new set of game design principles built around scarcity vs. inflationary free-to-play economies,” said John Linden, co-founder and CEO of Mythical Games. “As gamers and collectors ourselves, we believe players should have tangible assets that they earn and buy.”
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance and FTX participated in the Series C round. And a large number of companies and individuals associated with sports have invested in the latest funding. These include 32 Equity, the investment arm of the National Football League (NFL); Jonathan Kraft and The Kraft Group (New England Patriots and New England Revolution); Michael Gordon (Fenway Sports Group; Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC); and Michael Jordan & Curtis Polk (Hornet Sports & Entertainment; Charlotte Hornets and NASCAR Cup race team 23XI Racing).
The private blockchain used to support Blankos Block Party and the company’s two platforms uses a Proof of Authority model that is more sustainable than the more common Proof of Work model used for mining NFTs.
Blockchain gaming is attracting big money. In October, Andreessen Horowitz also led the $152 million round for the Axie Infinity game. This week Softbank led a $93 million funding for The Sandbox game, founded by Animoca. A couple of weeks ago, Ubisoft backed the latest $65 million funding for Animoca at a $2.2 billion valuation, following Animoca’s July extended round of $138 million.
