($1 = 1.5058 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Josh Ye; Editing by Brenda Goh and Susan Fenton)
By Josh Ye
HONG KONG, March 24 (Reuters) - Hong Kong-based
blockchain gaming developer Animoca Brands has cut its target
for its so-called metaverse fund by 20% to $800 million, people
familiar with the matter said, in a further scaling back of its
ambitions following volatility in the crypto sector.
Animoca Brands said in November that it was working on a new
Animoca Capital fund with a target of $2 billion, but then
halved that target in January to $1 billion. Recently, it has
trimmed the target by another 20% to $800 million, two people
familiar with the matter said. The sources declined to be named
as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Animoca Brands was valued at about $6 billion last July
after a financing round led by Singapore-based Temasek but it
has seen its shares trade at a much lower valuation in secondary
markets recently, with its market cap slipping to below $2
billion, two other people said.
The company, which was listed in Sydney until 2020, now
trades its shares on PrimaryMarkets, a private secondary share
trading platform. Latest data on the platform show that the
company’s market cap stood at just under 1.9 billion Australian
dollars ($1.26 billion) earlier this week.
A spokesperson for Animoca Brands declined to comment on its
fund raising plans. He said the company was aware that its
shares were trading at a discount on PrimaryMarkets, but said
the platform did not provide a reliable indicator of value.
Animoca's cut to its fund raising target and declining
valuation reflect a change in sentiment on the crypto industry
as excitement around such technologies has lost steam following
scandals stemming from the collapse of the FTX exchange to the
bankruptcy of several crypto lenders.
Animoca Brands was removed from the Australian
Securities Exchange in 2020 by the regulator because of its
aggressive expansion into the cryptocurrency industry.
Its expansive presence in crypto later positioned it to
become a crypto giant in 2021 and 2022 at the peak of the crypto
boom, with a series of large investments boosting its valuation
by nearly 600%.
In January, its co-founder Yat Siu told Reuters that the
company had invested in more than 380 companies including Axie
Infinity and OpenSea to build its vision of a “metaverse” based
around blockchain technology, in which users can buy and trade
digital assets in the form of non-fungible tokens.
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