Gaming startup Untamed Planet raises $24 million in Series A funding from Animoca Brands
Untamed Planet, a blockchain-based gaming startup, raised $24.3 million in a Series A funding round led by Animoca Brands.
Untamed Planet uses the game creation platform Roblox to recreate natural environments, incorporating non-fungible tokens (NFTs) built on the Solana blockchain.
Further, the startup donates between 50% and 100% of NFT sales to conservation organizations. For instance, micropayments in the game allowed users to donate $10,000 to sponsor a black rhino calf in Kenya's Borana Conservancy in June of 2021.
With the new funding, Untamed Planet plans to partner with nWay, a mobile gaming firm that’s a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, to create a game that benefits conservation efforts called Untamed Metaverse.
While NFTs have been used to augment charity donations, it appears that social-good use cases are expanding in the blockchain-gaming world too.
Animoca Brands is a Hong Kong-based software firm that funds blockchain-based games as well as traditional game companies. The firm acquired nWay in December of 2019; the firm went on to partner with the International Olympic Committee to create a blockchain-based game in 2022.