Summoners Arena, a Vietnamese blockchain-based roleplaying game (RPG), announced Friday the completion of a $3 million round of seed financing.

The round was led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Onechain Technology, GuildFi, Merit Circle, Cosmic Guild, Coin98 Ventures, Istari Ventures, Spartan Group, Impossible Finance, Kyber Ventures, and Kyros Ventures as well as several prominent angel investors in the gaming and crypto ecosystem, including Chang-Han Kim, Chief Executive of Krafton, and Mirza Uddin from Injective Labs, Summoners Arena said in a statement.

With this round of financing, Summoners Arena plans to accelerate the growth of the Summonia universe, developing and integrating new features and tools into the game to bring a new compelling, breathtaking and unique experience for its users. The team will bring on new headcount across all functions.

The firm is scheduled to launch two official versions of the game, a non-blockchain free-to-play (F2P) version where users are unable to earn digital assets and a play-own-earn (POE) version. Players of the F2P version are rewarded with free characters and features when they join the POE version.

“People around the world are earning extra income by playing play-to-earn (P2E) games and its potential is limitless. Yet we still believe that gaming should be fun and user-friendly, which is the cornerstone of Summoners Arena’s POE model–removing barriers to entry into this space and promoting sustainable development where gamers can focus on gameplay while also enjoying financial benefits. Summoners Arena represents the future of gaming by combining quality gameplay with the ability to earn and own digital assets in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs),” said Hung Tran, Founder of Summoners Arena.

Summoners Arena is an idle-RPG blockchain-based game that integrates traditional and blockchain gaming to provide countless opportunities for players to take part in immersive gameplay, experience true ownership over gaming assets while earning crypto assets. Developed from an already-established game with a strong user-base, Summoners Arena has had vast experience in community building, graphics, lore, and character development. Its play-first model puts heavy emphasis on well-developed gameplay and user experience, allowing it to differentiate from the usual earn-first P2E model of most GameFi projects.

“P2E games have gained massive popularity in the blockchain space, spearheading a new age of blockchain gaming. The opportunity to earn real money by playing a game with blockchain technology and NFTs is attracting even more players and games to the market. P2E games are more than a new take on traditional games. In the near future, more sophisticated products may change the whole GameFi landscape–Summoners Arena is poised to be one of those. We believe that Summoners Arena has the ability to go beyond the P2E model to deliver an exceptional experience and compelling game quality to the community as well as bridge the migration of traditional gamers into the crypto world,” said Phuc Pham, Co-Founder of OneSoft.

Summoners Arena is backed by game developer studios OneSoft, the 16th largest game publisher in the world in 2021—as well as Zitga, and Sonat. The project brings together expertise across gaming and crypto backgrounds with a vision to create sustainable blockchain-based gaming experiences for gamers around the world.

Summoners Arena integrates traditional and blockchain gaming elements to provide a multi-layered experience for players to take part in immersive gameplay, experience true ownership over gaming assets while earning digital assets. In the game, players summon heroes to engage in five-vs-five battles with fellow Summoners through various game modes and settings, with heroes represented in the game as NFTs with unique stats and features. Summoners Arena offers POE game features that enable users to generate and have true ownership of their digital assets.

“Summoners Arena is on the frontier of blockchain-based gaming. They’ve produced fantastic artwork, rich lore, and highly enjoyable game mechanics. By prioritizing building an amazing game first and layering in crypto economics second, their play-own-earn model is setting a strong example for other projects in the space, learning lessons from early attempts at the play-to-earn model,” said Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital.

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 48,500 percent in eight years and has returned billions to its investors. Pantera manages $5 billion across three strategies – passive, hedge, and venture — exclusively focused on bitcoin, other digital currencies, and companies in the blockchain tech ecosystem.

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