MetaverseGo, a Filipino-founded blockchain gaming platform, has announced raising $4.2 million in a seed funding round anchored by Galaxy Interactive, a sector-focused venture capital firm investing in interactive entertainment.
The seed funding is one of the largest seed rounds in the Philippines so far and further positions the country as a likely “role model” for play-to-earn concept in Southeast Asia.
In a statement, the startup disclosed that its oversubscribed round was also backed by a number of venture capital investors including Delphi Digital, Dragonfly Capital, Mechanism Capital, and Infinity Ventures Crypto.
Shima Capital, Com2uS, Akatsuki, Ascensive Assets, BitScale Capital, Yield Guild Games (YGG), BreederDAO, Mentha Partners, and Emfarsis also participated in the funding round.
MetaverseGo’s co-founders are Ash Mandhyan, who has previously held positions at Facebook and TikTok makers Bytedance, Jake San Diego, and JC Velasquez.
The fresh capital will be used for software development, securing partnerships with telecommunication providers, and strategic hires to help active MetaverseGo’s goal of easing the onboarding process for blockchain-based games.
The company describes the barriers to onboarding new players to blockchain-based platforms as “long, complex and risk-laden processes.”
To address this and to accelerate adoption with mainstream markets and non-crypto natives, MetaverseGo said it provides access to web3 games without the usual prerequisite of understanding how to use cryptocurrencies.
“We’ve seen rapid adoption (of crypto) around the world, but as long as crypto onboarding is as arduous as it is today, that growth can only go so far. MetaverseGo is solving this by making Web3 games accessible via a technology that everyone knows how to use — a mobile phone number,” says MetaverseGo co-founder and CEO Mandhyan.
MetaverseGo’s funding comes as data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed that the volume of cryptocurrency transactions in the country grew 362% year-on-year to nearly 20 million in the first six months of 2021. The transactions were worth about P106 billion.
Last year, Yield Guild Games Southeast Asia (YGG SEA), the subDAO of Philippine-based decentralised play-to-earn gaming outfit Yield Guild Games, announced raising $15 million across two rounds of funding.
BlockchainSpace, a Philippine-based play-to-earn guild enabler, also raised $3.75 million in a seed funding round led by Animoca Brands, a blockchain-based gaming company.