Planetarium Labs, which is building a community-driven Web3 game network, has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by Animoca Brands.
The investment will be used to help Planetarium Labs build out its network with tools for gaming and player governance, co-founder and CEO Kijun Seo told CoinDesk in an email.
Other investors in the round included Samsung Next and Planetarium partners Krust Universe, the investment arm of South Korean tech giant Kakao, and WeMade, the publisher of play-to-earn game Mir4.
The Planetarium Labs gaming system is based on Libplanet, a software development kit that lets developers create blockchain applications entirely on the Unity game development platform.
“Instead of multiple games sharing a single network, each game runs its application-specific blockchain network and has the freedom to design its governance and customize tokenomics, such as enabling free-to-play,” Seo said. “Afterwards, the players and the gaming community can operate a decentralized network powering each game.”
The Libplanet technology was used in the open-source online role-playing game Nine Chronicles, which has more than 300,000 users and backers that include Animoca Brands, Binance Labs and Ubisoft. Nine Chronicles will launch a “Chapter 3” update next week with a slate of new features, including dual staking programs and player championships, Seo said.
“Planetarium Labs is also supporting the development of live-action collectible NFT (non-fungible token) RPG Stella Fantasy, which had a major gameplay trailer reveal this week. We have recently signed a partnership with XL Games founded by Jake Song, the creator of the famed Lineage franchise and the co-founder of Nexon to explore community-governed MMORPGs,” Seo said, referring to “massively multiplayer online role-playing games. He also noted that Planetarium will reveal more game titles under development through its partners later this quarter.
Hong Kong-based gaming investment firm Animoca Brands recently reported that its portfolio investments as of the end of April totaled more than $1.5 billion across 340 investments.
“We strongly believe that the future is massive decentralized worlds in an open metaverse, which is why we are delighted to support Planetarium Labs’ vision of community-centric blockchain games that empower players with creative freedom and full digital rights,” Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, said in a press release.
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