Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands acquired Pixowl (August 2018), the independent mobile game company behind the social metaverse platform "The Sandbox" built on Ethereum, which is one of the largest independent user-generated content platforms and gaming ecosystems. Users can roam the virtual world as an avatar, purchase land, host and/or engage in a wide range of experiences and contests, interact with others, and earn cryptocurrency through gameplay.

The platform also includes a no-code “Game Maker,” which enables users to create 3D assets and “VoxEdit”, allowing users to create, rig, and animate your own voxel-based NFTs. The Sandbox enables users to purchase or trade digital assets with other users in its virtual world using its native token SAND. As of January 2024, the company was working on incorporating GenAI tools to streamline content creation on its platform.

The Sandbox generates revenue via sales of digital land plots, and also takes a 5% commission from the value of NFTs traded on its Sandbox Marketplace.

In June 2024, Animoca Brands announced plans to go public in 2025, having initiated preliminary talks with investment banks regarding a potential IPO in crypto-friendly regions like Hong Kong or the Middle East. Following this, the company’s Eden Games subsidiary launched a beta version of its Web3 party royale kart racing game, Cosmic Royale in July 2024. The game was built as part of Animoca Brands' Motorverse, a global ecosystem of digital vehicle ownership, racing games, and motorsport culture. Additionally, in September 2024, the SEC amended its lawsuit against Binance, expanding the list of digital assets it alleges are securities to The Sandbox (SAND).

For 2024, the company had a goal of adding 2,000 user generated content (UGC) experiences on its platform. To support this, the company fully opened up its platform to UGC in November 2023, by removing the initial application process for publishing experiences. Other updates in relation to this included 1) the launch of a new Game Maker Fund, backed by 100 million of the platform’s native SAND tokens; 2) improvements to its asset creation platforms VoxEdit and Game Maker; 3) the introduction of the CATALYST token, allowing creators to mint assets; and 4) the launch of The Sandbox Marketplace on Polygon to aid creator monetization efforts.

Other updates include the acquisition of game development studio Sviper (February 2023) and the downward revision of its metaverse fundraising target to USD 1 billion for 2023 (compared to the USD 2 billion target set in November 2022).

Animoca Brands also operates OMA3 (Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3), a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to build an open and borderless metaverse. The DAO includes companies such as Alien Worlds, Dapper Labs, Decentraland, Star Atlas, the Sandbox, Wivity, Space, and Upland.

Other platforms operated by the company include Mocaverse, which provides users with immersive experiences like games, NFTs, virtual reality, and social media and allows them to create digital identities, build reputation, and earn and spend Realm Points within its ecosystem.

Animoca Brands reported bookings of USD 280 million in FY2023, a 30% YoY drop attributed to the slowdown of the overall Web3 market following the ‘crypto winter’. The Sandbox platform generated USD 64 million of bookings in FY2023 from the sale of its SAND token, and USD 5 million from the sale of NFTs.

Key customers and partnerships

As of December 2023, The Sandbox had over 5.8 million users and 280,000+ creators.

In June 2024, the company partnered with Futureverse to improve the latter's metaverse technology stack. Previously, in October 2023, the company partnered with engagement platform Agora to incorporate its 3D spatial audio, persistent text chat, and interactive live-streaming functionalities into The Sandbox.

Other partnerships with notable brands to launch virtual experiences on the platform included that with Warner Music Group (December 2023) and Gucci and Lacoste (November 2023).