Today Los Angeles-based CARV announced it raised a $4m seed round led by Temasek venture capital subsidiary Vertex. CARV is a blockchain firm creating a cross blockchain gaming credential that enables players to aggregate their gaming data across numerous web3 games. Imagine a gaming leaderboard that’s not limited to a single game.
“Gamer activities span across devices, platforms, and into real life. However, their time, effort, and money spent remain data points scattered across isolated ecosystems, with limited value to gamers,” said Victor Yu, CARV’s co-founder and COO. “By creating the infrastructure to piece these breadcrumbs together, we are unlocking tremendous opportunities in how gamers interact in the gaming universe.”
So far, CARV has collaborated with more than 30 web3 games across 11 blockchains. The product is still in the alpha phase, so quite a bit of the functionality on the website is not yet active.
“With the belief that gaming will be the most important segment track for linking traditional users and enthusiasts in the web3 world, we are very optimistic about the future market of web3 gaming,” saidLI Wei, partner at Vertex. “Besides game studios, we focus on the infrastructure of web3 games, particularly on gaming identity platforms.”
Today’s news comes after Temasek wrote down its recent $275 million investment in the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Vertex invested in Binance back in 2018 but exited the investment late last year, shortly before Binance withdrew its Singapore license application.
Consistent with the latest Vertex investment, Temasek’s other web3 investments indicate a strong belief in web3 gaming and the metaverse. It led the funding of ImmutableX, the blockchain scaling solution known for games such as Gods Unchained. And it is one of the higher profile investors in Animoca Brands, the metaverse conglomerate.
Meanwhile, other CARV participants in the seed round include EVOS (ATTN Group), SNACKCLUB (Loud Gaming), Infinity Ventures Crypto, YGG SEA, UpHonest Capital, Lyrik Ventures, Lintentry Foundation, PAKADAO, 7UpDAO, Angel Investor Aliaksandr Hadzilin (NEAR’s co-founder) and others.
