immutability, polygon Matic
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Labs and King River Capital have teamed up to raise $100 million for a new web3 games fund.
The fund, called the Inevitable Games Fund (IGF), will be ecosystem agnostic and invest in early-stage, high-growth Web3 gaming startups, the three companies said Tuesday. Venture capital firm King River will lead the fund’s investment process, while blockchain developers Immutable and Polygon Labs will provide deal sourcing and web3 gaming expertise.
Immutable’s head of investments, Brendan Ma, told The Block that the fund has already completed its first close at $30 million, up from its target size of $100 million. He noted that discussions about raising the fund began in the middle of last year.
The fund has secured an anchor commitment from Alpha Wave Ventures (backed by Alpha Wave Global and Abu Dhabi Royal Group’s Chimera Capital) and other commitments from Merit Circle, Mike Arrington, Polygon Labs’ Sandeep Nailwal and Immutable’s co-founders and brothers . , James and Robbie Ferguson.
When asked why the fund was being launched now, Ma said this was an important year for web3 games. “The studio is now two to three years post-funding, meaning the culmination of years of curated development processes is expected to finally come to fruition and reach players,” he said.
“We expect this to be a landmark year for web3 games and we want to ensure the industry continues to move forward. IGF is here to fund the next projects that follow this one and move the industry forward, both in the short term and of course “And the same is true in the long run,” he added.
The fund has already attracted seven early-stage investments, including Pixelmon, Metalcore, Guild of Guardians and My Pet Hooligan.
Invariants, polygons, and King River relationships
The three companies are no strangers to each other. Immutable’s zkEVM mainnet, a gaming-focused blockchain, is powered by Polygon, and King River is an investor in Immutable. In 2022, Immutable launched its own $500 million developer and venture fund to support gaming and NFT startups based on its Layer 2 Immutable X platform. Meanwhile, Polygon Labs has launched several funds and joint initiatives over the past few years to support startups in gaming and other fields.
“Just as mobile gaming has gone from virtually zero in 2008 to 79% of gamers playing mobile today, we believe a similar transformation in web3 technology is just beginning,” said Zeb Rice, co-founder and managing partner of King River Capital. He said. name. Rice added that the fund is “designed to benefit hundreds of billions of dollars in shifting spending toward these disruptive new technologies.”
The fund’s launch comes amid a boom in the cryptocurrency market and a recent resurgence in fundraising. Last week, the Arbitrum Foundation announced a program designed to invest 200 million ARB tokens (about $400 million) over two years to promote gaming projects on the blockchain.
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