Arcane Ventures has disclosed 31 investment projects, covering five major areas including IP/creator platform, chain games/ metaverse, infrastructure, DeFi, and community.
Written by angelilu, Foresight News
In 2022, "Metaverse " won the second place among the Oxford Word of the Year shortlisted entries. After excluding the "bubble", the Metaverse metaverse attracted the attention of many venture capital investors. Chain games, IP, and NFT under the concept of Metaverse derivatives have also followed suit. Be sought after. Leading funds and traditional financial institutions responded quickly to this trend. In 2022, Spartan Group, HSBC, Invesco and other institutions launched billion-level Metaverse special funds. And this trend continues. In March this year, Bitkraft, a game-focused venture capital, also launched a token fund of approximately US$220 million to invest in blockchain games and digital entertainment.
Born in the "First Year of the Metaverse"
Of course, new venture capital funds are also actively deploying. Arcane Ventures , established in the "first year of the Metaverse", is deeply involved in the field of blockchain technology and cutting-edge technology in Asia. The current fund management scale has reached 200 million U.S. dollars, and the strength of the team is also insufficient. Its founding partner Neil Su once served as the investment director of private equity firm Bond Capital Partners. Another partner of Arcane, Evans Huangfu , served as the head of Huobi Ventures, the strategic investment department of Huobi Group, and was the youngest head in the history of Huobi Ventures. .
For a young venture capital institution, Arcane Ventures’ investment map is beginning to appear but its investment strategy has already been traced:
Laying out the "Web3 New Consumption" field
After an in-depth analysis of the 31 projects invested by Arcane Ventures, it can be found that Arcane Ventures' investments mainly cover virtual IP, chain games/ metaverse, infrastructure, DeFi, community and other tracks. Arcane does not adopt the "cast a wide net" strategy favored by most investment institutions. It is not difficult to see from the distribution of investment numbers that Arcane Ventures' investment focus is still on virtual IP, chain games, metaverse, and user-friendly infrastructure Waiting for the "Web3 new consumption" field.
Evans Huangfu , partner at Arcane, said, "In recent years, the blockchain industry has gradually expanded from an engineer-dominated financial industry to a mass-friendly consumer industry. We are committed to promoting the development of the blockchain industry in a more popular direction. , to ensure that more people can benefit from this innovative technology."
Such an investment strategy is not unreasonable. With the popularization of blockchain technology and the large-scale adoption of Web3, Web3 will become the new normal in the digital era, and the consumer entertainment industry plays a crucial role in this process. And the combination of Web3 and the consumer entertainment industry has natural advantages. NFT and digital collections can become a catalyst for product innovation. The application of Metaverse and virtual IP subverts the traditional rules of brand marketing, sublimating the brand's image from a single logo to a virtual one. A living presence in space. With the support of decentralized technology, native Web3 consumer entertainment can give users true digital ownership and dominance, truly put users at the center, and deepen the bond between platform and users, brands and consumers.
Emphasis on synergy
While focusing on investment in the new consumer field of Web3, Arcane also emphasizes the synergy between investment projects. In other words, when Arcane invests, it does not just look at the value of a single project, but also values its cooperation in the overall business strategy. Its investment footprint shows that Arcane is still involved in many infrastructure projects. This is because they realize that no matter what type of project, they need to be fueled by "infrastructure" projects. Here, Arcane plays an important role as a connector and intermediary, assisting upstream and downstream enterprises to establish connections.
For example, in the process of Web3, privacy protection becomes increasingly important. Arcane has made early plans and added Polyhedra to its investment map. This project focuses on zero-knowledge proof DID and can provide long-term privacy solutions for Arcane's other investment projects to ensure the security and commercialization of user data.
In addition, Arcane is building a complete ecosystem around the most important new consumer areas of Web3. In order to help more and more Web2 industry talents enter Web3, Arcane has included projects such as Particle Network and OpenFort in its investment map, which can help developers reduce costs. Barriers to entry.
Evans Huangfu, partner at Arcane, said, "Teams from Web2 can rely on Particle Network's authentication services for Web3 development, which includes social login, user interface customization, secure hosting, and fast transactions. Particle Network 's services provide these teams with everything from The bridge from Web2 to Web3. OpenFort provides "wallet-as-a-service" software products for other projects, and creates customized account abstraction solutions specifically for chain game products."
The game/entertainment projects invested by Arcane can use Pass3 's advertising network to expand in the Southeast Asian market. Another investment project, the blockchain game and game infrastructure layer Fusionist , can take into account both its own development and collaborative promotion. Fusionist’s mainnet Endurance currently has accumulated 1.5 million wallet addresses and maintains more than 100,000 daily active addresses. Therefore, Arcane Investment Multi-chain deployment of chain game projects on Endurance can also greatly increase the promotion speed.
Arcane also values synergy between IP companies and chain games. For example, the IP acquired by Kasagi Labo, a Japanese IP company under Arcane's territory, can be integrated into Arcane's chain gaming projects to maximize the sharing and flow of resources.
The following is a comprehensive review of the 31 investment projects that Arcane Ventures has disclosed, and a more in-depth exploration of its layout in the "Web3 New Consumption" era.
Overview of investment projects
IP & Creator Platform
Animoca Brands
Animoca Brands is a developer and publisher of blockchain-based games and digital collections. Before entering blockchain games in 2018, Animoca Brands had been listed in Australia with traditional mobile game development as its core business. After 2018, its star products include sand Box game The Sandbox and NFT project Mocaverse, etc. In addition to chain game development, Animoca Brands is also an early investor in Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis, Decentraland, Dapper Labs and other metaverse projects and chain game development studios.
Yuga Labs
Yuga Labs is a blockchain technology company that develops NFTs and digital collectibles. Its first product is the BAYC(BAYC) NFT. In addition, Yuga Labs has also acquired blue-chip NFT projects CryptoPunks and Meebits. In addition, , Yuga Labs launched the cryptocurrency ApeCoin, and developed the metaverse project Otherside and the strategy game LoTM, among others.
Outland NFT
Outland NFT is an encrypted art platform founded by a core executive team of art institutions, galleries and museums. The website contains reviews, collections, conversations, news and recommendations, etc., bringing together criticism and dialogue about art, technology and NFT.
RepubliK
RepubliK is a Web3 creation platform that allows content creators to connect with their audiences on the platform and leverages built-in smart contracts to handle the monetization process, allowing content creators to create, connect, and get rewarded. The protocol was launched in November 2022 and recently completed a $6 million seed round at a valuation of $75 million.
Kasagi Labo
Kasagi Labo is a publishing and licensing company specializing in the production of animation, comics and TV series. It acquires intellectual property rights and converts original IP into genuine animation products.
EMERGE Group
EMERGE Group is a market technology agency specializing in developing optimal monetization solutions for content creators, intellectual property holders, ad inventory and brands. In the Web3 field, a strategic partnership has been established with Immutable Games, a Web3 game publisher, to carry out marketing activities.
Chain Games/ Metaverse
Fusionist
Fusionist is a blockchain game and game infrastructure layer that currently supports Ethereum and BNB Chain. It launched the Fusionist mainnet Endurance in January this year. The game includes three game types: construction simulation, turn-based tactics, exploration and expansion. Players play the role of mecha commanders, manage their own planet, collect rare resources, upgrade technology, and build interstellar fleets through PvP and PvE battles for interstellar exploration. war.
Stella Fantasy
Stella Fantasy is a character collection NFT action RPG game. Its developer, Ring Games, was founded in 2019 by the former core developers of the global hit game "King's Raid" and is committed to developing new high-precision action games and other Web3 games.
Puffverse
Puffverse is a fantasy metaverse, a casual party game created with fantastic 3D cartoon images. It is invested by Xiaomi and launched on the Xiaomi App Store. Its products include Puff NFT, on-chain multiplayer game PuffGo, metaverse and UGC platform PuffWorld, Wallet integration as well as Web3 control panel PuffTown, UGC PuffLand for game design, etc. The economic model includes tokens PUFF and vePUFF. PUFF is a circulation token and vePUFF is a governance token.
Unlike other chain games, Puffverse aims to connect Web 3 and Web 2. In addition to enhancing game playability in the Web3 version, it has also released multiple Web2-only versions of PuffGo that do not involve tokens/NFTs to increase brand awareness.
Moonveil Entertainment
Moonveil Entertainment is a Web3 game studio. The team comes from game industry backgrounds such as "League of Legends", "Teamfight Tactics", and "Minecraft".
TTT
TTT is a Web3 game incubated by blockchain game publisher Xterio. The game includes racing and shooting PVP game types. The game will integrate the Web3 economy and is currently under development.
Space Nation
Space Nation is a AAA space opera Web3 massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). It is directed by the Hollywood director Roland Emmerich of "The Day After Tomorrow" and "2012", Jerome Wu, the head of China operations of "World of Warcraft", and senior game producers. Co-founded by founder Tony Tang and media entrepreneur Marco Weber, the core project Space Nation Online has been in development for more than three years, with a total investment of US$50 million. It started Alpha testing in August and is expected to be officially launched in the second quarter of 2024. The economic model includes the game's governance token OIK, utility token CHR and NFT.
Mythic Protocol
Mythic Protocol is a Web3 collaborative entertainment protocol. Its goal is to create an entertainment product ecosystem that combines blockchain technology, games and creative media. It plans to publish it in the form of games and comics, and gradually develop into a movie universe, the first project It is a rogue-lite ARPG using blockchain technology.
Gameta
Gameta is an NFT game ecosystem designed to bring Web2 users into the metaverse through automatic on-chain address creation, low gas fees, optional private key hosting, and more. Users can receive NFT for free by registering their Gameta wallet. Users can earn GDO rewards when playing games, and GDO rewards can be exchanged for USDC.
MetaOne
MetaOne is a "Game Guild as a Service (SaaS)" platform dedicated to introducing large-scale games and guilds into blockchain games. It is integrated into the game architecture, mines relevant data for guild analysis, is equipped with guild management tools, and provides asset management. To help stakeholders generate income and design smart contracts to execute cross-chain investments securely and transparently.
Midnight Society
Midnight Society is a chain game studio. The first game launched is the vertical escape shooter "Deadrop". This game combines the level design of an arena shooter, the scale of a battle royale, and the strategic gameplay of an escape shooter. It is characterized by: The map has a vertical design. The current game is open to its Tower Key and Founders Passes holders.
infrastructure
Consensys
Consensys is a blockchain technology company that provides Ethereum-based software and solutions to enterprises, developers and individuals. Its founder, Joseph Lubin, is also one of the co-founders of Ethereum. In addition to development and consulting services, its products include wallet MetaMask, development kit Infura, smart contract audit service Diligence, open source blockchain Quorum, etc.
Particle Network
Particle Network is Web3 infrastructure that aims to introduce convenience, interaction efficiency, data autonomy, and modular adaptability to users, protect user privacy, and improve interaction efficiency. Its V2 version will build an intent-centered (Intent-Centric), modular Web3 access layer, including zkWaaS (zero-knowledge proof wallet as a service) and Intent Fusion Protocol (intent fusion protocol), providing Confidential Login (private login) , Confidential Transaction (private transaction), DApps Intent Framework (application intent framework), Intent Solver Network (general intent execution network) and a series of modular components.
OpenFort
OpenFort is an encryption infrastructure service provider that focuses on developing its "wallet as a service" software products for game developers and publishers, making the interaction of on-chain assets in games as simple and programmable as interacting with data. Recently, it is Merit Circle Beam, a gaming subnet launched in partnership with Avalanche, provides account abstraction solutions.
Polyhedra
Polyhedra provides trustless and efficient interoperability solutions for asset transfer, messaging and data sharing between various Web2 and Web3 systems through zero-knowledge proof. Its products include cross-chain infrastructure zkBridge, ZK client zkLightClient, voucher system ZK-DID, and programmable NFT protocol ZK-NFT.
UXUY
UXUY is a decentralized multi-chain trading platform based on the MPC wallet. It lowers the threshold of use by providing users with a seed phrase and gas-free solution, and provides a trading experience similar to the traditional CEX platform. It currently supports 8 public chains, including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Tron, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom and Optimism.
Pass3
Pass3 is a Web3 advertising company that aims to provide a value exchange system for advertisers, publishers and users, and provides in-game reward advertising solutions (out-of-app). The main product is the advertising honor wall Pass3 Honorwall. When users click Earn rewards when advertising through Honorwall. In addition to Arcane's investment, Pass3 has also received investment from Pantera, Sequoia, Coinbase, Jump, Spartan, etc.
Nest
Nest aims to solve the control problems of digital identities, assets and transactions in the real world, providing blockchain functions and infrastructure to support most distributed services and products.
Fabric Cryptography
Fabric Cryptography is an encryption hardware manufacturer that focuses on the design, R&D and manufacturing of encryption chips and other related businesses. Fabric Cryptography is partnering with ZK technology developer Nil Foundation this year to launch a decentralized marketplace for encryption and outsourced proof generation, aiming to enable faster, more scalable, more private and zero-knowledge proof computing .
DeFi
APY.Vision
APY.Vision is a data platform built for DeFi protocols and investors. It can track users’ liquidity pool income and Impermanent Loss, monitor liquidity staking, and analyze historical profits and losses.
AlgoRai Finance
AlgoRai Finance is a decentralized finance platform offering structured products and derivatives on the Algorand and Ethereum blockchains. It currently provides structured products for Algo, BTC and ETH, generating income through strategies such as automatically covered call options and put options.
First Digital
First Digital is a technology-driven financial institution that launched FDUSD, a stablecoin backed by reserves, in June 2023. FDUSD has been listed on Ethereum and BNB Chain.
BBOX
BBOX is a decentralized sustainable exchange that was selected into the Binance Labs Season 6 Incubation Program. It aims to optimize the trading experience through technologies such as dynamic AMM, multi-asset signals, and OEV capture, and provide liquidity providers with more Revenue Opportunities.
BasedApp
BasedApp is a Web3 bank designed to enable users to spend, send and invest cryptocurrencies anytime and anywhere. Its features include encrypted Visa cards, support for account abstraction and support for email or Google account login. Its services are initially available on the Polygon network.
Community
Discord
Discord is a communication platform that combines text, voice, and video chat, used primarily by gamers but also by the crypto community for real-time interactions.
Vega Idol
Vega Idol is a Web3 entertainment platform that uses Asia's idol talent show as its main gameplay. The selection process uses a decentralized reality show competition mechanism. Through token economic models and product design, fan groups can participate in the selection and growth of idols. Grouping, promotion and other aspects allow fans to grow together and share profits with the new generation of idols.
