Quick take:
- Avalanche-based Shrapnel has raised $7 million in a token sale.
- The funding round was backed by leading venture capital firms including Dragonfly and Three Arrows Capital.
- The latest round brings Shrapnel maker Neon’s total fundraising to $17.5M after raising $10.5 million last year.
Video Game developer Neon has completed a $7 million token sale backed by Dragonfly and Three Arrows Capital. The funds will be used to beef up the development of its Avalanche-based blockchain game Shrapnel.
Neon has now raised $17.5 million following last year’s fundraising of $10.5 million.
Shrapnel is a futuristic first-person shooter game looking to take the niche gaming segment to the next level.
The funding round also attracted various angel investors including Keith Nunziata of Citadel Global Equities and Kleiner Perkins’ Jason Zhao. Other firms backing Neon include Griffin Gaming Partners alongside Polychain Capital, which participated in the funding round last November.
Blockchain gaming has experienced an uptick in growth over the last 16 months amid the NFTs and metaverse craze. And although NFT transaction activity seems to be taking a breather, the GameFi segment of the market continues to gain traction with venture capital investment driving growth.
Shrapnel CEO Mark Long is one of the most popular names in the gaming sector having held positions at Sega Genesis and Playstation 4. The highly experienced game developer has also served various clients including Disney, Ubisoft and the U.S. Army.
Long pointed out various bottlenecks facing the early adopters of play-to-earn gaming, particularly the concept of fractionalising expensive characters to allow more players to use them in the gaming environment.
In some of the most popular games like Axie Infinity, low-earning players can still gain access to premium characters through what Long calls, “sharecropping”.
He also commented on Ubisoft’s failed attempt to launch a blockchain version of its popular game Ghost Recon after facing community backlash. The global game developer launched its Tezos-based Quartz platform last year to bring AAA gaming to the metaverse.
After cancelling the P2E version of the game, now Long says Shrapnel will be the first store-quality production on Avalanche.
“I think the first developer that publishes the opportunity for players to make a game, a core competitive game of their own, could be one of the next major franchises, and that’s exactly what Shrapnel is,” Long said in an interview.
Stay up to date:
