A new round of funding for CryptoKitties authors has ended. As part of Series A, Dapper Labs received $11 million. And immediately announced a blockchain for games and entertainment applications.
More than a dozen investors took part in the round. According to Crunchbase, the largest amount in Dapper Labs was invested by the Andreessen Horowitz crypto fund. To date, the company has raised $40 million, according to VentureBeat.
After the completion of the funding round, Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou made two statements.
Firstly, the company has developed a new blockchain and is ready to launch it in 2020. It’s called Flow. Its purpose is to support a decentralized (independent) entertainment software system. These can be games, sports services, music applications, etc.
Secondly, Dapper Labs has entered into a partnership with “leading game publishers” to distribute its blockchain. For example, the authors of CryptoKitties are advised by Ubisoft.
Ubisoft has always preferred a collaborative approach to the development of new technologies and innovations. We strive to learn more about Dapper Labs, one of the most talented pioneers in the field of gaming blockchain. To do this, we share with them our own experience in developing AAA games. We believe that as a player-oriented technology, blockchain can really interest players. Director of Blockchain Initiative at Ubisoft's Strategic Innovation Laboratory
The collaboration with the Flow team was also confirmed by Animoca Brands. This is a mobile publisher and developer from Hong Kong, known for Crazy Kings and Crazy Defense Heroes. He has already invested in Dapper Labs and even launched a local version of Cryptokitties in China.
Potential of Dapper Labs
Animoca Brands is actively investing in cryptocurrency projects (read more here). But she’s not the only one. According to Sergey Kopov, the founder of 0xGames, now many major players consider cryptonisha promising. And this is even despite the fact that there is no such hype around the cryptocurrency topic as there was a year or two ago.
“The market of decentralized applications and games has been developing for several years. The number of platforms providing their work is also growing,” Kopov notes in a comment for App2Top.ru – However, so far there has not been one that would solve all the problems that limit the growth of the audience.”
The solution is being sought by giants such as Telegram and Facebook, among others. Their platforms — TON and Libra, respectively — do not focus on entertainment software, but Kopov still considers Dapper Labs their competitor.
“They started with a game about “cryptocurrencies”, but then quickly switched to developing their own platform, because it’s easier to attract investments for infrastructure projects,” he explains. — But at the moment they have not shown advantages that would set them apart from competitors. Therefore, their chances of winning are no greater than the others.”
Vladimir Tomko, co-founder and CEO of Blockchain Cuties Universe, gives Dapper Labs a little more points. “The company has a good tracking, a diversified product portfolio (one and a half successful blockchain games, a specially sharpened Dapper crypto wallet for dapps and, as it turned out, its own blockchain in development – Flow), as well as an understanding of the market, the presence of a team, experience and funds,” he lists. “I would say that, all other things being equal, Dapper Labs has a serious chance to realize its plans.”
The potential of the gaming crypto market
The market of decentralized applications and games is being actively explored by DappRadar, Experimental, Gumi Cryptos and similar pioneers. Many, like Dapper Labs, attract millions of dollars in funding rounds. The technologies already used in crypto-games are beginning to be applied in non-gaming spheres. This includes the so-called unique, “non-replaceable” tokens (non-fungible tokens). They assign various in-game assets to the players (the same “cryptocurrencies”), which attracts new users to the blockchain.
Not only the mentioned Telegram and Facebook, but also a number of large blockchains have already become interested in this opportunity. KaKao and LINE are also preparing to present their developments.
“The story of non-fungible tokens <…> fits perfectly on any other business not related to games. That is, it has a serious scalability potential and at the same time is constantly in close connection with the financial world (cryptocurrencies), — Vladimir Tomko notes. “But not all the big companies mentioned are looking for investments to implement their new super—blockchain for games, which will bring the market closer to mass adoption, and Dapper Labs is looking for it.”
That is why the fact of the recent financing of Dapper Labs for $ 11 million is evidence of a rise in the market, Tomko believes.
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