Ancient8, Vietnam’s largest blockchain gaming guild, announced Wednesday the completion of a $4 million round of seed financing led by Dragonfly Capital, Pantera Capital, and Hashed.

The round also saw the participation from strategic backers including Mechanism Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, 3Twelve Capital, Coin98 Ventures, Kyros Ventures, Raydium, Jump Capital, GuildFi, Impossible Finance, Animoca Brands, Mirana Ventures (Venture Partner of Bybit and BitDAO), Chromia, Sipher, Smrti Lab, Folius Ventures, PANONY, Shima Capital, C^2 Ventures, and SkyVision Capital, Ancient 8 said in a statement.

Angel investors including Trung Nguyen (Axie Infinity), Santiago R Santos, Nick Chong, and Loi Luu (Kyber Network) also participated in the round.

With this round of financing, Ancient8 plans to expand its scholar base and invest in blockchain and Metaverse education for all community members to easily learn about exciting developments in GameFi; build more GameFi tools to help new and upstart games with go-to-market support and user acquisition; and build more blockchain and software product to serve as the infrastructure layer for the Metaverse.

Ancient8 will also continue to increase its game coverage as more blockchain games come out, particularly in the Solana ecosystem, providing more opportunities for community members to improve social and financial access in the Metaverse.

Building off its dominant position in Vietnam, Ancient8 plans to expand its growing user base throughout Southeast Asia in the near future.

“Partnering with our community of gaming enthusiasts and game developers, we are democratizing social and financial access for the first native generation of Metaverse citizens,” said Howard, Co-Founder of Ancient8.

“Innovative play-to-earn games such as Axie Infinity have changed the status quo, empowering gamers to own a piece of the games that they play and share social and financial rewards by contributing to the community, all while having fun. We are excited to build the infrastructure layer for the future of blockchain gaming and the Metaverse,” he added.

Founded in July 2021, Ancient8 is creating a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that develops a community and software platform to enable everyone to play and build in the Metaverse while earning rewards, with an emphasis on the Solana ecosystem. As Vietnam’s largest blockchain gaming guild and a community-centric platform, Ancient8 strives to meet community needs through its decentralized Ancient8 Community Alliance (ACA) with its global community partners, including MarginATM, TCVN, and AstroV, bringing blockchain knowledge, play-to-earn games, and core Metaverse offerings to the mass market.

Ancient8 aspires to reach, educate, and empower the first native generation of Metaverse citizens on the blockchain. To realize this, Ancient8 offers a full suite of products and services for users to enter the Metaverse fully equipped for success, including: scholarships and education, allowing users to borrow NFTs to play popular games and earn rewards and receive training from top gamers; community and software, supporting users and partners with technology, tools, and camaraderie; and investment, investing in new games and curating early access to NFT and game testing for superior user rewards—empowering users in their journey towards equal access to social and financial opportunities in fully-digital environments.

“Guilds represent an important building block in the GameFi ecosystem, offering users a powerful community to adopt new technologies and earn rewards for gameplay. We are excited to support Ancient8 in their efforts to build a strong crypto gaming community in Vietnam and beyond,” said Mia Deng, Partner at Dragonfly Capital.

Meanwhile, Pantera Capital Partner Paul Veradittakit said that Vietnam is one of the most exciting and fast-growing markets in the world today for blockchain adoption.

“Local communities are realizing the potential impact of this emerging financial system and in particular, the opportunities in play-to-earn gaming. Ancient8 has built an incredible gateway for the play-to-earn ecosystem as Vietnam’s largest blockchain gaming guild and we’re excited to partner with them,” he added. .

Hashed Partner Ethan Kyuntae Kim also said that he is extremely excited about Ancient8’s mission to democratize social and financial access and reach, educate, and empower the first native generation of 100 million Metaverse citizens on the blockchain.

“The team is strongly positioned to realize this vision with their background in investing and as pioneers in crypto community building in Vietnam,” he added.

Ancient8 is backed by leading investors including Dragonfly Capital, Pantera Capital, Hashed, Mechanism Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Animoca Brands, among others.

Dragonfly Capital is a global venture fund, with offices in San Francisco, Beijing, and Singapore. It is backed by Sequoia China as well as many of the large crypto unicorns including Bitmain, OKEx, and Huobi. Dragonfly manages over $2B in crypto assets.

Pantera Capital is the first institutional investment firm focused exclusively on bitcoin, other digital currencies, and companies in the blockchain tech ecosystem. It launched the first cryptocurrency fund in the United States when bitcoin was at $65/BTC in 2013. The firm subsequently launched the first exclusively-blockchain venture fund. In 2017, Pantera was the first firm to offer an early-stage token fund. Pantera Bitcoin Fund has returned over 65,5 percent in eight years and has returned billions to its investors. Pantera manages $5.5 billion across three strategies – passive, hedge, and venture – exclusively focused on bitcoin, other digital currencies, and companies in the blockchain tech ecosystem.

Hashed is a global, multi-billion venture fund focused on backing founders pioneering the future of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Led by serial entrepreneurs and engineers, Hashed is expediting global blockchain adoption through strategic investments and community building. Based in Seoul, San Francisco, Singapore and Bangalore, Hashed has cultivated industry-defining web3 founders around the globe by accelerating teams such as Terra Money, Axie Infinity, Klaytn(Kakao) Link(Line), and The Sandbox. Hashed additionally operates metaverse studio UNOPND and a digital assets custody service KODA.

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