AAG Ventures Raises $12.5M in Private Round to Create Economic Empowerment through Play-To-Earn and Learn-To-Earn
On November 30th, Singapore — AAG Ventures is pleased to announce the successful raise of over $12M in its Private Round that concluded this week. This is the 2nd largest private round for P2E guilds or guild platforms reported to date.
The round was led by Shima Capital, Tribe Capital, and Tess Ventures and includes HashKey Capital, Everest Ventures Group, Republic Realm, Portico Ventures, Genblock Capital, Kosmos Capital, GDP Venture, Muse Builder, Slayton Capital, Synergis Capital, ViaBTC Capital, Sanctor Capital, YellowBlocks, Oyster Ventures, and Fomocraft Ventures.
Notable angel investors include Dave Wang & Partners (SoftBank LatAm Fund), Sandeep Nailwal (Co-Founder of Polygon), Nguyen Trung Tin (Founder & CEO of Sipher), Antonny Liem (Investment Partner of GDP Venture, one of Indonesia’s most prominent Internet investors and venture builders), Alan Seid (Advisor to the President of Palau), George Chu (Founder & CEO of FiO.one), Kimiko Doan (Founder of YellowBlocks), Chris Gonsalves (CEO of Community Gaming), Ken Berger (CEO of Lorem Labs), Armando Aguilar (Digital Assets Strategist at Fundstrat), Carmen Feliciano (Managing Director of Access Ventures), Angels from Hustle Fund’s Angel Squad, Founders of CUKIES.world, Chavamon Vinijtrongjit (EVP, Head of Retail Partnership Business Products at TMBThanachart Bank PCL), Parinya Narkprasert, CFA (Team Head, Corporate Banking at TMBThanachart Bank PCL), Willow Li (Founder and CEO of AyiConnect), Steven Bryson-Haynes (VP of Business Development, NFT & Gaming at Polygon)
Game studio backers include Vulcan Forged, Sipher, Cukies.world, Immortal Game, Community Gaming
What is AAG Ventures?
AAG Ventures is a project that combines 3 components. The first component is a Play-To-Earn (P2E) Guild that enables players (a.k.a. scholars) to earn crypto while playing blockchain games. The second component is a P2E platform that helps other guilds engage players at scale and serves as the “backbone” for P2E ecosystem participants (e.g., guilds, players, NFT owners and game developers). The last component is a Learn-To-Earn platform that will enable future learn-to-earn applications, which are applications that allow players to earn crypto while learning transferable skills (e.g., math or programming) through educational games or educational platforms.
“I’ve had the pleasure to see AAG Ventures grow from a standard P2E guild to a category defining powerhouse, creating new industries, like a scholars microservices platform to help other guilds maximize their resources to developing the world’s first Learn-To-Earn ecosystem. We are excited and honored to back Nelly, Jack, David and the entire AAG Ventures family on their quest to be a category king in the blockchain industry, ” said Yida Gao, lead investor and Founder & General Partner at Shima Capital.
What will the funding go towards?
In its first 4 months of existence, AAG Ventures has built a guild (“Achip & Achair Guild”) of 2K scholars in the Philippines and 6 other developing countries. It has also designed a vision for and started development on the P2E and L2E platforms. The company plans to release beta versions of both platforms in 22H1. This funding will allow AAG Ventures to realize those plans as well as its future vision of onboarding 100M people onto the metaverse economy by 2030.
Going forward, AAG Ventures has a 3 pillar strategy:
First, launch the P2E Platform — The Platform will be software infrastructure that automates processes needed by nearly all guilds and serves as the backbone for P2E ecosystem participants. “We think the best chance for us to get to 100M scholars is by cooperating and enabling other guilds rather than competing with them,” said Co-Founder and CEO Jack Vinijtrongjit. “The platform model is aligned with our deep software expertise and how we can best do that. We imagine that in 5–10 years that there are 10K guilds with at least 10K players each and a software platform will be foundational to that happening.” Han Kao, Founder of Sanctor Capital also added that:
“The shift from Free2Play to Play2Earn will give rise to the guild model and foster the growth of hundreds of guild startups. AAG Ventures takes this fundamental evolution one step further by providing the tools and infrastructure for these such guilds to operate and serve their scholars.”
Second, expand its P2E Guild — In conjunction with building the new platform, AAG Ventures will continue to expand its guild. “While the path to 100M will likely be achieved through other guilds and the platform pillar, expanding our existing guild of 2K scholars will allow us to help more people achieve economic sufficiency immediately, expand across the globe, diversify across games and most importantly gain insights on guilds’ pain points to inform our platform roadmap,” said David Liu, Co-Founder and Chief of Product and Operations.
Third, launch the first Learn-To-Earn (L2E) Platform — AAG also aims to create a new concept that takes the best of P2E but redirects its focus directly on education. Like P2E, L2E participants will be able to earn crypto from engaging in a game or gamified activity. Unlike P2E, however, players will be learning transferable skills that can make them employable and self-sufficient. AAG Ventures and Republic Realm have formed a joint venture to build the first Learn-To-Earn platform in 2022. Vladimir Velmeshev, Partner at Kosmos Ventures says “, We are also excited about AAG Ventures’ exploration of future use cases for P2E and the potential shift from in-game tasks to more useful tasks, such as programming, learning, or general problem-solving.”
Funding will be crucial for accelerating product development, marketing and NFT acquisition as well as educating the public and regulatory bodies.
“We are proud to be an investor of AAG Ventures. As P2E games play a key role in pushing massive adoption of blockchain, gaming guilds serve as a critical bridge that connects the community and applications, especially in the developing countries, ” said Deng Chao, CEO of HashKey Capital, “The great value we see in AAG is not only an intelligent guild as a platform system, but also a team that equips with strategic vision and industry expertise. More importantly, AAG has given thousands of people an opportunity to participate in the Metaverse economy and we believe with the right execution, AAG will become the industry leader as their slogan states ‘Doing Well by Doing Good’.”
About AAG Ventures
AAG Ventures is the creator of AAG (Achip & Achair Guild), one of the fastest-growing gaming guilds in the Play-To-Earn blockchain game industry with more than 2,000 scholars participating in seven countries: Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, India, Nigeria, and Russia. AAG Venture’s mission is to Create Economic Freedom Worldwide Through the Metaverse Economy.
Team and Advisors include:
- Co-Founders from Harmony Protocol, Co-Founder of Formation.FI, Co-Founder of Lympo.io and Founder of YellowBlocks
- Experience from Google, JPMorgan Chase, McKinsey, Facebook, Amazon, Salesforce, Intel, IBM, TIBCO, Samsung, Vodafone, and Citibank
- Alumni from Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Yale, Claremont McKenna College, and UCLA
- Global Coverage (17 Countries)
What Our Backers Have to Say
“We see Play-To-Earn evolving through incorporating new narratives like Learn-To-Earn. AAG Ventures is making possible the financialization of education and knowledge across SE Asia and LATAM. We are excited to support builders and innovators in this space and see the empowerment they are bringing to these regions.” — Apolo Ohno, Partner at Tribe Capital
“Tess Ventures is excited to back AAG Ventures. We see the massive potential of P2E games to improve the lives of many people around the world. P2E gives people access to economic opportunity in a format that they understand — games. Further, blockchain technology provides transferable assets and currency for players to use and exchange. This keeps players on the platform and allows them to make money at the same time. The team has the ability and commitment to democratize P2E and the metaverse economy. This combination makes AAG a force in the growing P2E space.” — Tess Hau, Founder of Tess Ventures
“I’m thrilled to partner with the AAG Ventures team to create an impact in the Gamefi space. We think that AAG can offer value-add tools and services for scholars and game projects, creating a sustainable Play-To-Earn environment in the long run.” — Jerome Wong, Co-Founder of Everest Ventures Group
“We are proud to be an investor of AAG Ventures. As P2E games play a key role in pushing massive adoption of blockchain, gaming guilds serve as a critical bridge that connects the community and applications, especially in the developing countries. The great value we see in AAG is not only an intelligent guild as a platform system, but also a team that equips with strategic vision and industry expertise. More importantly, AAG has given thousands of people an opportunity to participate in the Metaverse economy and we believe with the right execution, AAG will become the industry leader as their slogan states ‘Doing Well by Doing Good’.” — Deng Chao, CEO of HashKey Capital
“Genblock Capital is pleased to announce an investment in AAG Ventures, an innovative platform empowering scholars in the Play-To-Earn realm. We hold similar beliefs of the metaverse’s true potential, and combined with the team’s clear vision and goals, we believe AAG can effectively democratize the Play-To-Earn space. We look forward to working together and believe there is a bright future for AAG and its scholars.” — Bilal Junaid, Founder of Genblock Capital
“We, at Kosmos Ventures, believe that gaming guilds will be an integral part of the P2E economy and become the first cohort of the metaverse users. Gaming guilds should provide value not only to the players, but also to the games and the community. We are looking for teams, which can establish true craftsmanship within a metaverse. AAG Ventures is well-positioned to achieve this with an impressive founding team and robust guild management platform. We are also excited about AAG exploration of future use cases for P2E and the potential shift from in-game tasks to more useful tasks, such as programming, learning, or general problem-solving.” — Vladimir Velmeshev, Partner at Kosmos Ventures
“The shift from Free2Play to Play2Earn will give rise to the guild model and foster the growth of hundreds of guild startups. AAG Ventures takes this fundamental evolution one step further by providing the tools and infrastructure for these such guilds to operate and serve their scholars. It is exciting to be part of the fundamental building blocks of a brand new gaming economy.” — Han Kao, Founder of Sanctor Capital
Words from the Founders
“AAG: Achip & Achair Guild is the story of FAITH & HOPE — as long as you have a “Chip” (like “Computer/Phone Chip”, instead of “Poker Chip”) and a “Chair”, you still have HOPE. It is the True Life Story of the 2 Filipino Co-Founders (Omar and Jayson) who asked me for funding and advice to help them launch their small little Guild. I felt led to support them and asked Jack to join us. We both jumped in. Then together, four of us built AAG into the 2nd largest PTE Guild in the world, in less than two months. We are blessed and grateful for this outstanding growth. AAG is bigger and better than we could have accomplished on our own.” — Co-Founder and Chairwoman, Nelly Sutjiadi
“Play-To-Earn is taking the world by storm and bringing many positive impacts into people’s lives. At AAG Ventures, we want to be at the forefront of this movement and enable guilds and other participants to help grow the space to its fullest potential through our platform. We also want to encourage fair participation via our DAOs, and believe that our community will be a significant force in helping us shape and form the directions for the years to come. Thanks to our backers and partners, we are now in a very strong position to accelerate our growth and work towards our ambitious vision. It’s a very exciting time ahead for us.” — Co-Founder and CEO, Jack Vinijtrongjit
“AAG for me is…HOPE. Our experience with AAG is that it brought us from “nothing” to “something”. Before AAG, my wife and I didn’t know where to get income to pay for our monthly bills. And now, it’s different. We can pay our bills, we can also help our parents’ bills. Both of our parents are playing, too. And before, they don’t know where to get and how to buy their medicines. And now, by playing Axie Infinity, they’re able to. It works for us. It works for our 2,000 scholars. I believe with the right partners, AAG can give access to many more people and change lives around the world, as it has done for me, my family, our scholars, and their families.” — Co-Founder and VP of Operations, Omar Moscoso
AAG Ventures IDO
After raising $12.5M in an oversubscribed Private Round led by Shima Capital, Tribe Capital, and Tess Ventures, AAG Ventures is excited to announce the launch date of AAG Token IDO.
Token Launch Auction (TLA) or IDO will begin on 12th December at NOON UTC. Follow us on Twitter for news on how to participate and up-to-date information.
Have a question about the AAG IDO? Visit the AAG Ventures Telegram community to get your answer now!
