Pixelmon, the Web3 project that initially inspired countless memes due to bad art, is starting to complete its comeback story.
Today, the company announced it has raised $8 million in seed funding. The round saw participation from Animoca Brands, Delphi Ventures, Amber Group, Bing Ventures, Bitscale Capital, Cypher Capital, Foresight Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Spartan Labs, and others.
In addition, some major individuals in Web3 also contributed money, including Alex Becker, FaZe Banks, Loopify, EllioTrades, and Zeneca.
“We are very excited to be backing Pixelmon on the next chapter of their journey,” Piers Kicks, Founding Partner of Delphi Ventures, said in a statement shared with Rarity Sniper. “The ecosystem has shown massive resilience in accumulating its early battle scars and lore, and we believe the team led by Giulio is strongly positioned to show the world what IP forged in the fiery flames of crypto is capable of.”
The seed round comes as Pixelmon is focusing on the Web3 gaming industry. It has already released one hypercasual game called “Kevin the Adventurer” on Coinbase’s Layer 2 chain and plans to release another hypercasual game in Q1 of this year.
Pixelmon initially launched as an NFT collection in February 2022. It was a hyped mint, raising $70 million, but the art was so bad that it became meme-worthy. LiquidX, a company based in Singapore, took over Pixelmon in September 2022, after which it became focused on decentralized gaming.
Web3 Gaming Still Going Strong
Web3 gaming may have cooled off since the New Year, but there’s no doubt it’s positioned to onboard millions into the next iteration of the internet. Here are three stories all from the past two months showing just how powerful this sector of Web3 can be.
First, the Portalcoin Web3 gaming project blew up on X. The fun and games started from a unique marketing strategy, where Portalcoin rewarded users for engaging with the project’s posts. That led to a surge in activity, making Portalcoin a trending topic on the social media platform.
Next, the floor price of Web3 gaming community Neo Tokyo soared, bolstered by a stream of new entrants, including Animoca Brands’ own Yat Sui. Within 30 days, the floor price went from 5 ETH to 20, surprising just about everyone. And it came during a resurgence for NFTs as well.
Lastly, Animoca Brands and Ubisoft partnered for a Web3 gaming push. The partnership was said to integrate Ubisoft latest NFT game Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles into Animoca Brands’ Mocaverse, where users would be able to receive exclusive rewards.
As these stories show, Web3 gaming made a quite a bit of noise towards the end of 2023. While it has cooled off since then, today’s news may give it a jolt. And with a bevy of games in the pipeline, 2024 could be a big year for this sector.