Temasek steps up investment in crypto space – to lead US$100M funding for HK-based firm Animoca

Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings will be leading a US$100 million funding round for Animoca Brands Corp through convertible bonds.

Animoca, a Hong Kong-based software and venture capital company founded in 2014, develop blockchain games, among other products.

Earlier in January, the company successfully raised a funding round at a valuation of US$5 billion, led by Libert City Ventures, and included George Soros as an investor.

Currently, Animoca is Asia’s biggest blockchain investor, and its co-founder Yat Siu envisions the company challenging the dominance of big tech firms like Meta and Microsoft, through its building of Web3.

Animoca is also an investor in NFT platform OpenSea, and decentralised autonomous organisation Yield Guild Games. Previously, Animoca and Temasek also participated in a US$200 million funding round for Australian NFT platform Immutable.

According to Temasek, the state fund does not invest in cryptocurrencies, but instead prefers to back service providers in the cryptocurrency space instead.

Other cryptocurrency-related investments by Temasek include Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, crypto finance service provider Amber Group, payments platform PayPal, and fintech firm FNZ.

This comes after the recent crash in cryptocurrency prices which saw US$2 trillion in digital assets being wiped out since November.

According to Siu, however, the company has been taking advantage of the downturn to buy up stakes in industry players and digital tokens, and plans to go public in the next two to three years.

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