Web3-focused gaming company Animoca Brands has announced that it is now targeting a fundraising goal of $1 billion for a fund to inject aid into already established blockchain projects. This is significantly lower than the $2 billion the company announced in November as the upper limit for the same fund.

Animoca Brands Announces Lower Numbers for Web3 and Metaverse Fund

Animoca Brands, one of the most popular Web3 and blockchain gaming companies, has made a new announcement about its Q1 2023 fundraising goals. Yat Siu, co-founder of the company, recently made an announcement about its goals Fundraising for the first quarter of 2023 said in a Twitter Spaces chat that it was looking to raise $1 billion from various parties for a fund tentatively named Animoca Capital, which would focus its activities on supporting already established Web3 projects.

That figure is well below the goal Yat Siu set in November when he first revealed his intention to launch the fund, saying Animoca Brands planned to raise up to $2 billion. At the time, Yat Siu recognized the challenge of raising such a large amount of money, with the demise of FTX recently shaking up the cryptocurrency world.

Siu said the event affected a dozen projects in the Animoca Brands portfolio, and the backlash affected the broader cryptocurrency market.

optimism remains

However, even with these events hampering the state of the crypto market and Web3, Animoca Brands is optimistic about the outcome of this venture. On the topic of reaching the newly announced goal, Yat Siu explained:

Q1 is the target and then we’ll see what happens. It’s fair to say it’s a tough market. But we are very interested.

However, as of November, Yat Siu did not disclose investors interested in supporting the fund. The fund will focus on investing in late-stage Web3 and metaverse game projects, which is considered less risky than putting money into new start-ups.

Animoca Brands still has no plans to raise money this year. Data from the company’s press releases indicates that it had more than $200 million in cash and around $940 million in cryptocurrency considered liquid as part of its reserves as of November. In July, the company raised $75 million, reaching a valuation of $5.9 billion.

Most recently, in September, Animoca secured $110 million in a funding round led by Temasek, a Singapore-owned venture capital firm, Boyu Capital and GGV Capital.