Indian gaming firm nCore Games has raised $10 million in a new funding round led by Animoca Brands and Galaxy Interactive, according to a report.
- Polygon and Hyperedge Capital also participated in the round, according to a report by TechCrunch on Monday. The funds will be used to spearhead a push into Web 3 gaming.
- Having developed a range of games that have attracted tens of millions of downloads, nCore’s bigger focus is turning to the metaverse and launching its own non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
- Despite India’s size as a mobile gaming market, firms are struggling to monetize their users due to apparent resistance to the in-app purchase model.
- nCore co-founder Vishal Gondal is however optimistic that Web 3 products can make inroads through additional incentives on offer. “Currently when you’re playing a game, the maximum upside for you was to become part of some community. Now while you’re playing the game, you also have the chance to own the value of the game,” he said to Tech Crunch.
- Hong Kong-based Animoca Brands is an investor in NFTs and metaverse projects and has a majority stake in metaverse game The Sandbox. It received a valuation of $2.2 billion during a $65 million funding round in October.
- Layer 2 Ethereum-scaling service Polygon is also no stranger to such ventures having created a $200 million initiative in December alongside Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian to invest in social media and Web 3-based projects.
- Neither Animoca nor Polygon had responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment at press time.
Read more: Web 3 Is a Long Fight Worth Fighting