Animoca Brands is the most active investor for Q3 with 21 projects

Animoca Brands lined up among the top investors in Q3, with a total of 21 deals. Its match is Robot Ventures, which focused on L2 projects and AI startups in crypto space. 

Animoca Brands is reviving the Web3 gaming sector with its renewed focus and inflows. The fund, created after a successful fundraising, moved beyond its own game and incubated top play-to-earn and Web3 projects. In the past three months, the total fundraising reached $3.03B with variations based on reporting. Animoca Brands is the highlight as a crypto insider fund, which helped foster the Web3 bull market in 2021.

The strong investment results in August put 2024 fundraising ahead of the previous year. However, VC funds are not as active as during the 2021 bull market. The recovery of fundraising is also fragile and the trend may reverse quickly. 

The closest competitor in terms of raw number of deals was Robot Ventures, a Tier 3 fund. This VC investor has an entirely different focus, mostly on seed rounds for infrastructure and DeFi.

Unlike other funds, Robot Ventures was hitting its pace in 2024, breaking new records in terms of monthly deals. August was the most successful month with a total of nine deals. Robot Ventures also specializes in rounds of $3M to $10M, which make up around a third of all VC deals on average. 

Animoca Brands cooperates with Tier 1 funds

Animoca Brands completed a total of 21 deals in Q3, supporting a mix of games and DeFi startups. The fund, which is often seen in rounds with Tier 1 investors, has one of the most up-to-date portfolios, as it is able to grasp trends early and invest in the hottest narratives. 

The fund is also receiving inflows from its previously incubated projects and is sitting on more than $291M in assets as of Q1, 2024. The company has constant revenue streams from crypto advisory services, as well as from some of the startups it incubated, leaving even more leeway to support new projects. Animoca Brands holds more than $1.8B in off-balance token reserves from some of its previous investments. 

Animoca Brands has invested in a total of 141 assets, tapping top-tier tokens like Toncoin (TON), Shiba Inu (SHIB), ImmutableX (IMX), and earlier, Polygon (MATIC). In total, tokens backed by Animoca Brands are trading at a total market cap of $6.04B, depending on the assets included.

The investments in Animoca Brands peaked in May but had a successful month in August. The fund is now back to investment levels from 2022, but still supporting fewer rounds compared to the market peak in 2021. 

Animoca Brands was also a leader for the past six months, with a total of 55 deals, double the average for VC funds. Investor activity is lower than average, but the selections of VC funds are still watched closely for incubating the next hot project. 

While VC tokens are viewed with some skepticism, the ability to vet teams and ensure product development is an alternative to meme tokens, which rely on nothing but hype. 

At the same time, Animoca Brands is agile enough to invest in small projects created for fun. The Animoca Brands rounds are numerous but range between $3M and $10M. At the same time, the fund has participated in large-scale deals above $100M, often partnering with giants like a16z, Paradigm, and Polychain Capital.

Around a third of Animoca Brands’ rounds are early-stage or seed rounds, with 37.35% in undisclosed rounds. The fund is also one of the last to still support NFT projects, SocialFi, metaverse, and play-to-earn games. 

Animoca Brands supported a total of five GameFi projects in September, raising $38.95M in total. The biggest deal was for Balance (EPT), in a $30M round led by a16z. 

Gaming tokens are still around 50% down from their 2021 peak, but Animoca Brands is searching for the next batch of games and decentralized projects. 

Crypto deals saw 105 rounds in the past 30 days, though with a drop of 25% in terms of value invested. Funds raised a total of $645M for the past 30 days, a lower monthly result compared to nearly $1B in August. 

Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva