NPC Labs, founded by former Coinbase employees, raises $21M to build games on Base

NPC Labs, a GameFi infrastructure startup founded by three former Coinbase employees, has raised $21 million to accelerate game development on Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 2 network.

The funding includes $18 million from cryptocurrency-focused Pantera Capital. Makers Fund, Hashed, Mirana Ventures and several other investors are also in, according to a July 22 report by VentureBeat, reposted by NPC on X.

NPC is designed to help developers market their GameFi projects and provide more support than developers get when dealing with pocket printers.

NPC CEO and former Coinbase Business Development Associate Darryl Xu said, “After spending years creating a game, publishers look to developers to deem them worthy of supporting, marketing and distributing their games. “And when they do, they give up 70% of the revenue that allows developers to pull a game if they don't earn enough.”

Such a setup would “return control” to the game's developers and players, Xu said.

“We want to help moms in Nebraska build fun games and make it easier for developers to take advantage of OnChain.”

To achieve this, the Layer 3 GameFi-focused blockchain built on top of Base, which bridges NPC transactions, gas payments and in-game assets, will be the main contributor to B3.

This way, developers can focus more on deploying a fun game, NPC suggests.

Choosing the infrastructure to build on top of was an easy choice for NPC, said the company's chief operating officer, Victoria Heing, who, like Xu, previously worked at Coinbase.

NPC's other co-founder Sean Geng also worked at Coinbase as an engineering manager.

Related: Web3 gaming should switch from gaming to ‘play-and-earn' – Bitget

While Base is a latecomer to the Ethereum Layer-2 space, Haying says it is well positioned to connect wallets with Coinbase's 100 million user base.

“We want to make it a little less intimidating for the retail user with everything that comes with crypto,” Haying said. “We want to remove what makes it difficult to have an easy and enjoyable experience.”

B3 also supports Ethereum and other Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible blockchains.

Magazine: Web3 Game Won't Exist In 5 Years, $656K For Best Crypto Game Pitch: Web3 Gamer