BITKRAFT Ventures was founded in 2015 by german serial entrepreneur, Jens Hilgers. BITKRAFT’s team is located in Berlin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, London, Madrid and Lisbon covering videogames and esports investments not only digitally but in the most relevant and busy metropoles for digital entertainment in the Western world.

BITKRAFT Ventures

Anthos, founded in 2007, invests in emerging consumer and technology companies that drive innovation and shape the future. Anthos provides strategic and operational support to entrepreneurs, enabling its portfolio companies to achieve their full potential and become industry leaders.

Anthos Capital

King River Capital invests in high-growth software and AI-driven technology businesses that are solving critical problems. The firm aims to cultivate a diverse, energized ecosystem of entrepreneurs, operators, and partners that will build the world’s iconic companies and create a better future. It invests typically in the Series A through Series C rounds.  King River Capital (KRC) was founded in 2019 as a venture capital fund dedicated to investing in exceptional teams that are building innovative companies in Australia and the US. It is headquartered in Surry Hills, Australia.

King River Capital

Play Ventures is a venture funding that invests globally in games and game services startups.

Play Ventures

Offchain Labs develops a solution for scaling Ethereum smart contracts.

Offchain Labs

Caballeros Capital is a private investment firm focused on investing in the blockchain innovation space.

Caballeros Capital

Zentry pioneered the Metagame Layer, a game of games that overlays reality. It's a real-life MMORPG in which worlds merge and people connect, resulting in the Play Economy—a digital symbiosis affecting lives.

Zentry

RockawayX is a blockchain-focused venture capital fund that aims to create wealth over the long term. They invest globally in top cryptocurrency funds, companies, and protocols.

RockawayX

Gam3Girl aims to bring leading Web2 talent in Asia to the Web3 world by providing resources and information for economic system design.

Gam3Girl Ventures

Darkbright Studios

Darkbright Studios is the developer of Smolbound, a Web3 life sim RPG.

Darkbright Studios is the developer of Smolbound, a Web3 role-playing game (RPG) that combines life simulation with a player-driven world. The game features an expansive, procedurally generated environment where players can engage in activities such as farming, exploration, travel, and collection. Smolbound integrates Web3 technology, enabling player ownership of in-game assets, and supports a user-generated content (UGC) ecosystem, along with live operations. Darkbright Studios describes the game as a mix of the popular video games Animal Crossing and Raft.

Metaverse Experience Platforms

Darkbright Studios is the developer of Smolbound, a Web3 role-playing game (RPG) that combines life simulation with a player-driven world. The game features an expansive, procedurally generated environment where players can engage in activities such as farming, exploration, travel, and collection. Smolbound integrates Web3 technology, enabling player ownership of in-game assets, and supports a user-generated content (UGC) ecosystem, along with live operations. Darkbright Studios describes the game as a mix of the popular video games Animal Crossing and Raft.In Smolbound, player-created content can be minted as NFTs. This includes aesthetic items like clothing and houses as well as larger projects such as characters, tools, and islands. Players can monetize their creations by selling them, earning rewards from in-game events, or receiving income from other players who interact with their content.As of September 2024, Darkbright initiated closed beta tests for the game and planned to launch it on the Treasure Layer-2 blockchain in 2025.

Gather is a virtual space with web-based video calling capabilities, combined with a 2D pixel art-based map and characters that allow individuals to carry out natural conversations in a multitude of settings (office, university, etc.). The company was a part of the Y Combinator Summer 2019 cohort. The platform also offers private virtual meeting spaces with chat, whiteboards, document, and screen sharing features. Further, Gather also offers integrations with other enterprise applications, such as Slack, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. The company claims to have superior compatibility with spatial technology due to its natively built video conferencing system.It operates with a freemium subscription model that is free for up to 10 users, with paid plans starting at USD 7 per month for up to 500 people. The company also generates revenue for virtual conferences (free for up to 10 users), with paid plans starting at USD 3 per user per day.The company has a long-term vision for the metaverse to freely make work and educational opportunities available worldwide. In line with its vision, Gather has hosted over 20,000 virtual professional events, including academic conferences, job fairs, and professional societies (November 2021).Key customer and partnershipsAs of January 2024, the platform was used by over 1,000 teams, including notable enterprises, such as Y Combinator, Yelp, and Notion.Funding and financialsGather raised USD 50 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6425">November 2021</a>. The fresh funds were expected to be funneled toward expanding its operations and business reach.Key competitors: None under the same stage.

Gather

Mytaverse offers a hardware-agnostic 3D metaverse platform that enables enterprises to digitally host a wide range of activities, such as meetings, conferences, training simulations, and tradeshows. The company also allows for the creation of branded metaverses in the form of functioning environments or digital twins. Mytaverse also provides support for CRM integrations and customer profiles, with support for 50 users on any given virtual world. Further, Mytaverse claims that its tech allows for the creation of photorealistic spaces.Key customers and partnershipsNotable customers included Nike, PepsiCo, Dolby and Dassault Aviation, among others.Funding and financialsIn April 2022, Mytaverse raised USD 7.6 million in a seed funding round led by Blumberg Capital. The funds were raised to accelerate product development, expand sales and tech teams, and further expand interactions with brands and support strategic partnerships. As part of the deal, David Blumberg (founder and managing partner, Blumberg Capital) and John Paul Milciunas (general partner, Baselayer Ventures) were expected to join Mytaverse’s board.

Mytaverse

Alta is the game studio that developed Township Tale, an open-world VR multiplayer game set in a medieval fantasy world. Users can engage in multiplayer experiences that revolve around a wide range of activities such as cooking, crafting, PvE, mining, blacksmithing, and carpentry. The game relies on procedural generation, a method to combine computer and human-generated content on a large scale for mass content creation as its key differentiator.The company generates revenue via 1) sales of its game on the Meta Quest Store, priced at USD 10 and 2) sales of in-game cosmetics, ranging from USD 10-80. Users can also show further support to the game devs via monthly donations of USD 10, with players receiving in-game currency (for the purchase of in-game cosmetics), exclusive in-game discounts and the ability to create a private PC server.In April 2024, the company disclosed that it was developing a dark fantasy-themed VR exclusive game, codenamed ‘Project 2’. Key customers and partnershipsAccording to data from MMO Stats, The company was estimated to have a total of ~850,000 players as of January 2024.Funding and financialsIn its most recent funding round (January 2022), the company raised USD 12.4 million in seed funding co-led by Makers Fund and Andreessen Horowitz. The round valued the company at USD 62 million and the fresh funds were expected to be used to expand its team, create new partnerships, and further develop its technology.

Alta

BitDegree is a cryptocurrency learning platform that offers Learnoverse, a gamified and interactive crypto learning metaverse powered by the blockchain, where users will be able to create their own avatars, collect NFTs exclusive to Learnoverse, explore a virtual world (CryptoDegree City) that is divided into topic-based districts with each building representing a specific educational course on crypto, earn tokens through learning, and eventually obtain crypto-degrees. Course creators will be able to purchase NFT land on the platform and create NFT buildings to represent their courses, and its novel tokenomics will allow instructors to earn from their courses without charging the user.Key customers and partnershipsIn September 2022, the company partnered with web3 mobile development infrastructure provider Mirror World to create a course about Web3 gaming within Learnoverse, and NFT platform Lympo, to enable creators to mint NFTs within Leanoverse.Funding and financialsBitDegree raised over USD 1 million in funding from Japanese/Singaporean venture investor Mistletoe in June 2022. The funds were raised to create innovative methods of learning blockchain, crypto, and Web3-related topics within Learnoverse.

BitDegree

Star Atlas is a space-themed metaverse gaming platform built on the Solana blockchain and Unreal Engine 5. The game allows users to interact, organize, and explore unknown regions in space, alongside joining factions and harvesting resources. The platform includes assets that are tokenized, which provides users ownership over these unique assets and enables them to generate income through these assets. Star Atlas' in-game economy and governance is run using its native currencies, POLIS and ATLAS, and, as of May 2022, the platform had nearly 100,000 players.In May 2024, the company announced that it would launch Star Atlas on mobile Android and iOS by the end of the year.The company also developed the SAGE Labs browser-based open-world game in August 2023, which focuses on deep space resource extraction and crafting.Key customers and partnershipsIn July 2023, the company partnered with blockchain indexer Hello Moon, aiming to bolster the scalability and robustness of Star Atlas real-time data handling capabilities, effectively replacing its proprietary in-house solution. Additionally, the company partnered with Web3 company MetaGravity in the same month to scale its concurrent player count on a single server to 30,000 from 5,000.Funding and financialsIn December 2021, Star Atlas received USD 3 million in funding from Animoca Brands in the form of a purchase commitment of Star Atlas NFT spaceships. The NFT spaceships sold to Animoca Brands were part of Star Atlas’ Galactic Asset Offering (GAO) and all the revenue from asset sales from its GAO was expected to be used to further develop the Star Atlas metaverse.

Star Atlas

Platforms that offer collaborative 2D and 3D environments for enterprise and education-related use cases

Platforms that facilitate entertainment-focused virtual events and concerts

Platforms that focus on multiplayer gaming experiences in virtual worlds

Platforms that focus on social interaction, experience creation, and virtual land purchases

Platforms that enable the creation of avatars that are used as digital identities in metaverse platforms

Platforms that offer virtual worlds for multiplayer social gaming experiences enable users to create experiences and conduct transactions (e.g. buying virtual land)

Some solutions in the gaming platforms segment use AI for non-playable characters (NPCs)

Some gaming and social metaverses are decentralized, with features such as play-to-earn and NFT minting

Social gaming and pure-play social platforms facilitate virtual land transactions using crypto

Most solutions in this hub use AR/VR for virtual events, enterprise, and social/gaming use cases

Virtual worlds and web3 are the primary enabling technologies for the metaverse industry

Work platforms offer virtual spaces for enterprise use cases

A decentralized version of the web powered by the blockchain

Web3 Ecosystem

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 Web3-based game developer Darkbright Studios has secured $6 million in a seed funding round that was oversubscribed. Bitkraft Ventures led the round, with additional investments from Play Ventures, Anthos Capital, King River Capital, Rockaway X, Zentry, Caballeros Capital, Gam3Girl Ventures, and Offchain Labs.
 Darkbright will use the new funding to develop midcore game titles, the first of which will be Smolbound, a RPG life simulation game with Web3 integration. The company is currently conducting closed beta testing for Smolbound and anticipates launching the game on the Treasure Layer-2 blockchain in the coming year.
 Smolbound is a player-driven game offering an unlimited environment for players to participate in a variety of activities, including travel, farming, exploration, and collection. The game incorporates a vast UGC ecosystem, live operation and embraces Web3 integration allowing player ownership.
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Darkbright Studios

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