Soulbound Announces $3.6 Million Seed Round Lead by Animoca Brands to Develop the Middleware of the Metaverse
[17th June 2022] — [The Metaverse]: Soulbound came out of stealth today to announce the completion of an oversubscribed $3.6 million Pre-Seed Round of funding led by Animoca Brands and with participation by Delta Blockchain Fund, Genblock Capital, Moonchain Capital, Compute Ventures, NGC Ventures, Highstreet Ventures, M31 Capital, TsingTing Capital, Metal VC, PANONY, Rainmaker Games, Everest Ventures Group, vEmpire, SL2 Capital, and AAG Ventures.
Animoca Brands is a global leader in gamification and blockchain with a large portfolio of over 340 investments in web3 decentralized projects that are contributing to building the open metaverse. Soulbound joins Animoca Brands’ web3 investment portfolio, which includes innovators such as Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Yield Guild Games (YGG), Splinterlands, Star Atlas, and others. Animoca Brands also owns leading blockchain games such as The Sandbox and Phantom Galaxies.
“Soulbound shares our vision of an open metaverse, and we look forward to working with its team as it develops solutions to unlock the potential of blockchain gaming at scale. We are strongly encouraged by Soulbounds partnerships with upcoming AAA titles, tooling, and commitment to regulation-friendly ecosystems, and we believe that its Soulbound middleware approach will be able to assist blockchain games in growing committed player bases.” ~Yat Siu, the Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Animoca Brands.
About Soulbound
Soulbound is a Decentralized Gaming Community with a focus on expanding and enriching web3 gaming through building chain-agnostic market tooling, championing emerging projects, and unlocking the power of metaverse owners, builders, and players across the globe.
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Our priority is to work with regulation-compliant, AAA projects backed by professionals with deep gaming roots. By securing properties and resources traditionally only available to the wealthiest, Soulbound can empower gamers and provide governance regarding a significant portion of in-game economies to the players that most value these games.
The new funding will be used to develop Soulbound’s first major contribution to blockchain gaming: a player profile system designed to reward players for their passion and engagement across the metaverse.
To achieve this, Soulbound plans to form a series of game-specific councils recruited through our reputation system — a meritocracy that rewards real gamers. You will not be able to simply buy yourself onto a council, nor must you beg for a slot in some Discord chat. You will earn your position in Soulbound’s ecosystem, through play in the games you already value. Pledging and attaining a role on a council will grant benefits and responsibilities in equal measure as we empower the most passionate players in the metaverse to own their saga.
Over time, we believe this player-centered approach will attract the best minds in gaming that want to see blockchain gaming grow and thrive around the globe. Using Soulbound as the foundation, Soulbound will build tiered integrations and smart contract tooling to help this next evolution of gaming and social connection.
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To advance the adoption of blockchain gaming, Soulbound believes that web3 games need to be fun, broadly accessible, and valued as entertainment first, with monetization coming second. In order to support and reinforce this dynamic, average everyday players must also be empowered by a sense of ownership.
Enter the Soulbound Tokens (SBT) — a new token that can not be sold or transferred — only earned. Soulbound will incorporate our SBT M-XP (metaverse experience points) into a new tokenized proof of play system that will track your unique achievements and reputation across the metaverse, building your saga.
Soulbound serves gamers, guilds, and games so that a healthy metaverse ecosystem can thrive for years to come.
By using the Soulbound player profile, individual players and communities will gain access to the most exclusive opportunities in the metaverse; guilds will be able to enrich their recruitment and engagement processes, and games will be able to grow their player bases with real players. As gamers complete quests and missions across the various games supported by Soulbound, they are rewarded with NFTs, experience points, achievements and badges. Essentially creating their fingerprint across the web3 gaming ecosystem. What’s fun is that any third party can attach an NFT or their own currency as a reward to a Quest in Soulbound.
“We’re very excited for the future of gamefi as we release features to integrate SBTS’s across ecosystems and build a true independent profile for players in the metaverse. Becoming the one destination for gamers and guilds to show off their game assets, such as NFTs and in-game milestones, get rewarded for game play and achievements, and perform and launch quests with partnered and supported games. Soulbound will help connect all players, guilds and games together.” ~Casey Grooms, Head of Business Development and Co-Founder of Soulbound
The Soulbound player profile provides more than customizable rewards and opportunities — it provides on-chain status that cannot be faked or purchased. We are currently working with several high-profile projects to incorporate our quest platform as an education and reputation system to reflect the expertise an individual brings to the games they play across multiple ecosystems.
Gamers in web2 MMO and online games have poured billions of hours and dollars into walled gardens that will never reward them for the value they bring. We’re going to change that.
Soulbound’s Initial Properties
When it comes to blockchain gaming, Soulboundbelieves the best is yet to come. That’s why we’ve focused on upcoming AAA games that we believe will make a real and lasting cultural impact.
“Soulbound holds some of the most elite planets, asteroids, and digital land in the most promising upcoming second-generation blockchain games targeted at real gaming communities. We are working on a system to enable the best players to participate in governance regarding these lands in order to help establish the best practices for onboarding and retaining passionate players within this emerging paradigm.” ~ A.I. Mansbridge, CEO and Co-Founder of Soulbound.
Phantom Galaxies
Phantom Galaxies is a third-person action RPG shooter, thrusting players into an interstellar duel of Mechanized Starfighters, which shift fluidly between classic mecha robot form and a starship mode. In mecha mode, unleash barrages of bullets in space and on the ground, even getting up close for savage melee attacks with some builds — in starship form, hurtle through the stars with tight maneuvers and searing laser attacks.
Several members of Soulbound’s core team have been playing the Phantom Galaxies alpha since launch, and we’ve been blown away by the fun of the experience and the commitment of the playerbase. We believe it will be a huge draw for elite guilds and gamers — and we plan to help them find each other.
With multiple planets — including one of a very limited number of premium “large” planets — and over 100 asteroids, we’ll be opening limited access to raids, rewards, and giveaways through Soulbound.
Highstreet
Alongside Animoca Archipelago, Binance Beach, AVAX Alps, and Everyrealm Estuary — Soulbound will own and operate an exclusive island, Soulbound Sagalands, in this MMORPG that combines NFTs and physical items. Highstreet’s major partnerships with international brands and dedicated community already playing in the web browser metaverse carves out a fascinating approach to web3 gaming. By integrating Soulbound’s Quest System, Soulbound will help drive virtuous economic cycles in the Highstreet economy and make the space accessible to the high value player base they aim to attract.
Influence
Influence is a space strategy sandbox MMO set in the asteroid belt of the Adalia system incorporating real orbital path dependent resource management strategies with space combat. Taking inspiration from EVE Online, Influence targets sophisticated players capable of serious resource management, large scale organization, and complex strategy. When combined with true digital ownership, we believe Influence’s playerbase will be one of the most valuable in the blockchain gaming space.
Big Time
To those in the know, Big Time needs no introduction. A true AAA MMORPG set in a dynamic new sci-fi fantasy world that allows you to battle across space and time, Big Time does more than imitate successful web2 games. It innovates. With an all-star team of game industry veterans from the likes of Epic Games, Blizzard, EA, and Riot, and a solid commitment to regulation-friendly game economies, we feel Big Time has the potential to reach the heights of World of Warcraft, League of Legends, and Fortnite.
Join Soulbound Today
Want to build something people will love in web3? We’re a passionate team from diverse backgrounds (mobile apps, gaming, guilds, legal, finance, etc.) and we’re growing fast.
If you’ve been looking for a way to contribute to this new paradigm from a player-centred perspective, reach out. We are scaling up in every direction. There’s so much work to do. The new standards are being set right now…
by YOU.
Media contact:
Discord: https://discord.gg/soulboundinc
X: https://twitter.com/Soulbound_GG
Medium: https://medium.com/@souldbound.gg
Website: https://soulbound.gg/
Please Note: We are building Soulbound to be secure and robust platforms for our users and mindful that regulation will increase in this space. As part of our cautious approach, we are presently awaiting clearer guidance from the US SEC and other legal bodies before entering the US market.
