NFT-focussed game developer Animoca Brands has announced the completion of an $88,888,888 capital raise based on a valuation of $1 billion.

The raise was appear on Thursday, with participants including Kingsway Capital, HashKey Fintech Investment Fund, RIT Majuscule Partners and Huobi. Up to 93.4 meg newly issued shares in Animoca Brands volition be distributed to the investors at a subscription price of $0.85 each.

Animoca Brands co-founder and chairman Yat Siu noted that its strategic investors share the company's "vision for NFTs redefining equity and belongings rights online." Kingsway founder and CEO Manuel Stotz added:

"The emergence of digital belongings rights, whether via Bitcoin or NFTs, is perhaps the greatest opportunity for financial inclusion for the lesser three billion borderland and emerging marketplace consumers, too as an opportunity for a more decentralized and thus more equitable global net."

To commemorate the raise, Animoca will consequence a special nonfungible token to its investors and central partners.

The company says that funding volition be used for production development, acquisitions and securing licensing rights for its games. Animoca has released notable titles including The Sandbox, F1 Delta Time and MotoGP Ignition, and has invested in leading teams in the NFT space including Dapper Labs, OpenSea and Axie Infinity.

Final month, Animoca was ranked amongst Statista's listing of the top 500 loftier-growth companies in the Asia-Pacific region for 2021 in addition to beingness named one of Commonwealth of australia'due south fastest-growing companies.

In February, Animoca appear that its entire REVV motorsports ecosystem would be deployed on Polygon'south layer-two sidechain to alleviate the loftier gas fees associated with using Ethereum's mainnet, beginning with F1 Delta Time.

In Dec, an NFT representing v% of the Monaco track in F1 Delta Time was auctioned for $222,000. The winning bidder will be able to earn dividends from races held on the track.