The Sandbox, a Hong Kong-based gaming platform that allows players to create virtual worlds using non-fungible tokens (NFTs), announced on Monday that it had acquired $93 million from investors led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
The new round of funding came just over a year after the last one, as the company experienced rapid growth in monthly active users and transaction volume on the platform surpassed $144 million. It’s also Vision Fund 2’s first investment in a company that creates its own digital currency.
On the Ethereum blockchain, The Sandbox, which is majority-owned by blockchain game startup Animoca Brands, allows participants to create, control, and monetize virtual gaming experiences. It gives creators equity in the form of NFTs and gives them tools to produce assets on the network.
It has established partnerships with corporations and celebrities, like musician Snoop Dogg, who will use the Sandbox’s metaverse to create a digital duplicate of his estate.
The corporation wouldn’t say how much it’s worth, but the Sandbox coin, which it backs, has a market cap of about $2 billion. According to the firm, it currently holds around 22% of the tokens.
The coin’s value has increased by more than 200 percent since Facebook (FB.O) announced last week that it would change its name to Meta Platforms Inc, piqued investor interest in companies that create metaverse gaming experiences. The term “metaverse” refers to a shared virtual platform that individuals may access from a variety of devices and use to navigate through digital surroundings.
SoftBank has led a succession of fundings in NFT-related startups this year, despite the market’s tremendous expansion. Candy Digital, a sports NFT firm, and Sorare, an NFT fantasy soccer game, are among its recent investments.
