Animoca Brands Japan begins operations, raises seed round of ¥1.1 billion (US$10M)
Animoca Brands KK will support global expansion of Japanese content including anime, games, art, sports, and others
15 February 2022, Hong Kong – Animoca Brands, the Hong Kong-based company driving digital property rights via NFTs and parent company of The Sandbox, today announced it has begun operations in Japan with the launch of its strategic subsidiary Animoca Brands KK (“Animoca Brands Japan”), which has completed a raise of ¥1.1 billion (approximately US$10 million) of funding in its seed round.
Animoca Brands Japan is building a platform based on blockchain technology to enable intellectual property (IP) holders in Japan to build and expand fan communities via the issue of their own NFTs and fungible tokens and participation in the broader Web3 ecosystem. Animoca Brands Japan will work with global professionals to help Japanese IP holders branch out into international markets.
In January 2022, Animoca Brands Japan closed a seed round of ¥1.1 billion (approximately US$10 million) from MCP IPX One Fund (the “Fund”), which was established by MCP Asset Management (Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Tetsuya Tanaka) and Animoca Brands.
The Fund’s investors include Kodansha Ltd., Nishi-Nippon Railroad, as well as institutional investors from Japan and overseas including Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Limited. Animoca Brands Japan will use the new capital to expand its business in Japan with the goal to enhance the reach of Japanese IP globally.
Animoca Brands Japan is based in Tokyo’s Minato Ward and led by representative director Motoki Tani. Before being named representative director for Animoca Brands Japan, Motoki was managing director and senior portfolio manager of Millennium Capital Management, where he was responsible for Japan Macro Strategy Investment. Prior to joining Millennium Capital Management, Motoki headed Yen Bond Trading at JP Morgan.
Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, commented: “Japanese intellectual property includes a wealth of high-quality and appealing content. We are excited to establish Animoca Brands Japan and deeply honored to bring on institutional capital from the world’s most influential names in global Japanese culture, such as Kodansha and others. Our Japanese division will focus on partnering with IP owners in Japan to enable them to offer new Web3 products and services in the open metaverse.”
About Animoca Brands Japan
Animoca Brands Japan (Animoca Brands KK) is a Japanese strategic subsidiary of Animoca Brands focused on enabling famous IP holders in Japan to participate in the Web3 ecosystem while leveraging the network, reach, and expertise of Animoca Brands in contributing to the establishment of the open metaverse. For more information visit https://www.animocabrands.com.
Animoca Brands Japan public relations representative: Jin Matsumoto
Email: pr-abkk@animocabrands.com
About Animoca Brands
Animoca Brands, a Deloitte Tech Fast winner and ranked in the Financial Times list of High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2021, is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gamification. It develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilizing popular intellectual properties including Formula 1®, Disney, WWE, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Doraemon. Animoca Brands’ portfolio of blockchain investments includes over 150 of the most promising NFT-related companies and projects. For more information visit www.animocabrands.com or follow on Twitter or Facebook.
