Quick take:
- Magic Eden is launching its own venture fund to fund promising games and gaming infrastructure.
- The platform is also expanding its internal gaming arm, Eden Games.
- Magic Eden has appointed Tony Zhao as Head of Gaming Investments.
Leading Solana NFT marketplace, Magic Eden, today announced that it has launched Magic Ventures, a new fund that will focus on investing in promising blockchain games and gaming infrastructure.
Last month, Magic Eden was valued at $1.6 billion after a $130 million funding round. After completing a $27 million fundraise in March, Magic Eden said that it had plans to build a gaming vertical. Alongside the launch of Magic Ventures, the company also announced the launch of its internal gaming division, Eden Games, through the onboarding of key hires and new partnerships.
Magic Eden has appointed Tony Zhao as Head of Gaming Investments at Eden Games. Prior to joining Magic Eden, Tony was a key member of the Business Development and Investment team for Tencent Games, where he focused on investing in up-and-coming games, acquiring world-class studios, and forming strategic partnerships across the entire Tencent Games portfolio.
Speaking to VentureBeat, Zhao said that Magic Eden will not disclose how big the venture fund is and that the company is not aiming for a high return on investment, but wants to help its partners succeed.
“This is part of a package bundle to help developers make sure that they can have the best support from us in building their games,” Zhao told VentureBeat. “We’re not a VC fund. The purpose of this fund is not to make bets. It is to support and grow the Web3 ecosystem overall. We’re going to partner with the developers to make them feel comfortable working with us.”
Besides Zhao, Magic Eden has also announced new hires such as Yoonsup Choi, Harrison Chang, and Matt Biamonte, all of whom have extensive experience in professional gaming and esports, and have individually launched NFT projects. The trio’s knowledge of both traditional gaming and NFTs will provide developers with the dedicated advisory and operational support needed for go-to-market success.
“With the hiring of Tony, Harrison, Yoon, and Matt, we are building a strong foundation from which we can continue to collaborate with exciting innovators in the Web3 gaming ecosystem. Eden Games is a fast-growing sector of our business and we’re excited to continue its development,” said Jack Lu, CEO of Magic Eden.
Eden Games has also finalised partnerships to build marketplaces for blockchain games including, but not limited to, Aurory, Genopets, Mini Royale: Nations, Nekoverse, Remnants, Yaku, Halfwish, VBA, and Sugar Realm.
Magic Eden plans to continue building out a suite of essential tooling and services for games, enabling developers to focus on building gameplay.
While the company faces potential competition from Justin Kan’s Fractal, Magic Eden is still the market leader of NFTs traded on Solana. In June, Magic Eden represented over 92% of all gaming NFTs traded on Solana.
Over the past 24 hours, almost 63K SOL were traded on Magic Eden, 86.2 times more than the volume of SOL traded on OpenSea@DuneAnalytics dashboard by @SeaLaunch_ pic.twitter.com/UGULum0Qau
— NFTgators 🐊 (@NFTgators) July 6, 2022
So far, Eden Games has ushered in over 50 games and seen over 310,000 users mint or trade gaming-related NFTs on the company’s marketplace.
Stay up to date:
