When asked to comment on its fundraising plans, a spokesperson for Animoca Brands declined to respond. The spokesperson did, however, acknowledge that the company’s shares were trading at a discount on PrimaryMarkets, but cautioned that the platform did not provide a reliable indicator of value.
The decline in Animoca’s fundraising target and valuation reflects the changing sentiment on the crypto industry, as excitement around such technologies has lost steam following scandals stemming from the collapse of the FTX exchange to the bankruptcy of several crypto lenders.
Animoca Brands was removed from the Australian Securities Exchange in 2020 by the regulator due to its aggressive expansion into the cryptocurrency industry. However, its expansive presence in crypto later positioned it to become a crypto giant in 2021 and 2022 at the peak of the crypto boom, with a series of large investments boosting its valuation by nearly 600%.
In January, the company’s co-founder, Yat Siu, told Reuters that Animoca Brands had invested in over 380 companies, including Axie Infinity and OpenSea, to build its vision of a “metaverse” based on blockchain technology, in which users can buy and trade digital assets in the form of non-fungible tokens.
