Sandbox parent Animoca will launch a $2 billion Metaverse fund

Animoca Brands, the parent organization of The Sandbox metaverse, is ready to dive deeper into the virtual universe business. The Hong Kong-based blockchain company plans to unveil a $2 billion (about Rs. 16,260 crore) mega-fund, dedicated to metaverse activity. Animoca co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu discussed the fund’s ideas in a recent interview while talking about the company’s plans for 2023. Metaverse technology has seen a lot of investment these last time.

The pool of funds is intended to accelerate the development of immersive metaverse projects and create a real active market. So far, Animoca has not raised the huge amount.

According to the Nikkei Asia report, Sui is aware that the current crypto market crash may not be the ideal time to raise significant funds, but he remains hopeful that the markets will soon return to health.

“More and more people are joining crypto every day, especially in games,” Sui said.

Animoca’s metaverse gaming project, The Sandbox, has become famous for offering virtual lands to players, who can choose to decorate their properties with NFTs and host guests as well as virtual events.

“The long-term goal for us, and frankly for myself, is to create a medium where we all have digital property rights. I hope that also leads to a scenario where digital property is recognized as a physical property in the legal system,” Sui added.

Animoca tried to make development and activities related to the metaverse interoperable between separate platforms. To achieve this, the company launched a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) called Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3 (OMA3) in July this year.

Research reports suggest that there is a market opportunity for the metaverse to reach $800 billion (about Rs. 59,58,700 crore) in the next two years.

Against the background of this promising future, the metaverse sector is pocketing funds in several parts of the world.

For example, in February, South Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning in Seoul allocated KRW 223.7 billion (about Rs 1,400 crore) for the development of a national metaverse project.

Later in March, chipmaker Qualcomm set aside a $100 million (roughly Rs. 760 crore) fund, called the Snapdragon Metaverse Fund, in hopes of accelerating the development of Extended Reality technology.

Metaverse also picked up $30 million (about Rs 240 crore) in funding from Invesco, an investment management giant headquartered in Atlanta, US, in August this year.

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