Raising $8 Million From NFT Punchline, ‘Pixelmon’ Preps For MON Token Launch

Pixelmon started its crypto odyssey as one of the epitome of NFT FOMO for collectors. He spent $70 million. In a knock-off to Pokemon creatures that were so ugly, even the game's founder called the artwork a “horrible mistake.”

But two years and one After the change of ownershipBetween fundraising and the upcoming token launch, Pixelmon 2024 is aiming to make it big.

on tuesday, Pixelmon It announced an $8 million seed round featuring prominent backers in the crypto world, such as Animoka Brands and Delphi Digital. Additional investors include Amber Group, Bing Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Sfermion, Spartan Labs and several other firms.

Angel investors include Immutable Co-founder Robbie Ferguson, Profit Guild Games Co-founder Gaby Dizon, Founder and CEO of FaZe Clan Richard “Banks” Bengtson, and Anonymous Endless clouds Founder Loopify, among others.

Pixelmon was acquired by crypt VC studio LiquidX in 2022, months after the game's terrible artwork was revealed and the backlash that followed. LiquidX says that Pixelmon has had enough money to continue for years without seed funding, but is looking for an opportunity to bring in major partners before its upcoming release.

“Before, it was just us. Just like LiquidX, supporting Pixelmon's vision,” said Julio Giloyannis, CEO of Pixelmon and co-founder of LiquidX. DecryptGG. “We want a list of notable and valuable partners to join us in that vision. And a way to bring in investment partners like Animoka Brands, like Delphi Ventures, is to offer them the opportunity to participate.

“The fact that we had the runway for over five years prior to this latest cash injection was very attractive to our new investors,” he added.

After replacing the original's crowded, Minecraft-like artwork with more premium-looking cartoonish creature models, the current Pixelmon team has built games around the crypto IP. They were also working to reshape how the brand was perceived while at the same time embracing the ridiculously chaotic launch that made Pixelmon the NFT punchline.

Pixelmon started first Kevin the Adventurer Last October, it drew some 36,000 active players on the “hypercasual” game at Base, the Coinbase-incubated Ethereum scaling network. Kevin is the name of the iconic Pixelmon ogre-like creature – and a Pixelmon lookalike, in fact. Comparable base NFT collectable last summer.

Another casual game is called PixelPalsMixing pet care and trading card elements, the massively scaled action game Pixelmon Arena will end this quarter before the remastered version launches later this year. Another more robust Pixelmon experience, a world-class role-playing adventure called Hunting Grounds, is planned for early 2025.

The diverse output was designed to help the Pixelmon team experiment while targeting different types of audiences and platforms, Xiloyannis said.

“We start a mini-game every three months,” he explained. “We have six people working on quarterly hypercasual game releases. Web3 It's more about ‘degen leveraging' with player-centric game design. For example, there are many player-to-player, point-stealing mechanics.

“What we were able to do there was try new things, experiment and learn a lot,” Xiloyannis added. “For example, we're testing different blockchains; tracking Web3-native communications between players; and looking at how we can design anti-cheat in a blockchain-based game, which, frankly, no one has done yet.”

Between casual and hardcore games, as well as planned moves on trading cards, merchandise and various media adaptations, Pixelmon may be trying to recreate the playbook that has turned Pokemon into one of the world's biggest entertainment franchises.

But the team aims to do it in a decentralized manner, and it's doing so through the MON protocol — and the upcoming MON token. of Ethereum The ERC-20 token will fuel what is described as an “IP protocol” to incentivize and reward NFT holders who help grow the Pixelmon brand. Set to launch sometime in 2024, Pixelmon NFT holders can now register for the presale.

“The Mon protocol allows for decentralized management of the Pixelmon IP, allowing Monster NFT holders to actively participate in decisions about the species they own,” Xiloyannis said. DecryptGG. “The MON token will be an ecosystem token that powers Pixelmon games.”

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.