SYDNEY, Australia, March 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Immutable, which is powering the world of NFTs as the leading carbon-neutral, scalable platform for trading NFTs on Ethereum, today announced it secured $200 million in Series C financing led by Temasek, with investments from leading blockchain game juggernaut Animoca Brands and technology company Tencent, bringing its valuation to $2.5 billion. ParaFi Capital, Princeville Capital, Arrington Capital, Mirae Asset and Liberty Global also joined the round as new investors. King River Capital, Prosus Ventures, AirTree Ventures, Declaration Partners, Fabric Ventures, Possible Ventures and Alameda Research all increased their existing investments in Immutable.
This capital will be used to fuel Immutable's plans for global expansion, accelerate the company's growth by investing in the Immutable X platform, and scale the Immutable Gaming Studio, including its flagship games Gods Unchained (one of the largest blockchain games by players) and Guild of Guardians. With a team of 165 people, Immutable is one of Australia's fastest growing unicorns, and plans to hire an additional 200 new employees globally over the next 12 months predominantly in sales, marketing, engineering and product. Immutable will also use the funds to scale to meet the increasing demand for its platform and expand into new verticals, support gaming partners, acquire new customers, and explore M&A opportunities. Current companies building on Immutable X include GameStop, TikTok, Opensea, Ember Sword, Illuvium, GreenPark Sports, and Gary Vee (Vee Friends).
NFT integration gives users true ownership and the ability to buy, sell, trade, and play-and-earn in-game assets. Immutable X is built using StarkWare's StarkEx cutting-edge zero-knowledge proof technology, which rolls up hundreds of thousands of transactions into one while positioning users to safely secure digital assets directly on Ethereum. This enables Immutable to provide game developers and all NFT creators with unparalleled throughput and zero gas fees for trading and minting NFTs in a carbon-neutral environment, empowering them to create billions of low-cost, in-game assets that can easily be bought and sold.
"We're thrilled to double down on our partnership with Immutable. We're excited to explore integrations with Immutable X across Animoca's portfolio of content - bringing next-level scale, security, and liquidity to the next generation of blockchain games," said Yat Siu, Co-Founder and Chairman of Animoca.
To support the rapid global expansion plans, Immutable onboarded four new C-suite executives, including:
- Gill Findlay, Chief Operating Officer, bringing experience as a partner from AirTree Ventures, and C-suite leadership from Vamp and Australian unicorn SafetyCulture.
- John Boris, Chief Growth Officer, bringing experience as CEO of IfOnly, CMO of Shutterfly, and C-suite leadership roles from LonelyPlanet and other leading US-based tech-enabled companies.
- Justin Hulog, Chief Studio Officer, bringing experience from Riot Games, where he was General Manager, Southeast Asia, and Say Media where he held several key leadership roles.
- Katherine Rau, Chief People Officer, bringing experience from her leadership position at Culture Amp and other leading Australian tech companies such as Unlockd and Catch.com.au.
"Immutable is locked in on developing a leading, ambitious, and dependable web3 ecosystem for a new era of creators that desire scalable results in the world's fastest growing industry," said James Ferguson, CEO, Immutable. "Our investment partners understand the power and potential of the Immutable X platform and will play an integral role in this next phase of our growth. We are also excited to welcome new executive team members who will help execute on our aggressive business and growth plans."
"We are at a pivotal point in which the user experience creates a critical path to success for all emerging technologies, and Immutable's platform makes building NFT businesses simple, cost-effective, and extremely easy to monetize," said John Henderson, AirTree. "We are excited to be on this journey to foster greater adoption of powerful technology that is poised to change the way digital games are played."
Earlier this month, GameStop announced a strategic partnership with Immutable to launch its new NFT marketplace on the Immutable X platform. The partnership includes a $100M co-fund between the juggernaut and startup, targeting the advancement of high-impact NFT gaming projects.
About Immutable:
Sydney-based Immutable and its industry leading platform Immutable X is a pioneer in NFT technology, focused on Layer 2 liquidity solutions that bring scalability, affordability and power to the Ethereum NFT ecosystem. The protocol, powered by StarkWare's StarkEx innovative technology, can process 9000 transactions per second (TPS) with zero gas fees, and offers easy on-and-off ramps in a carbon-neutral environment. Immutable X is powering the world of NFTs through high-performance minting and trading, with all of the security and decentralization that Ethereum provides. Immutable X has already announced integrations with leading marketplaces such as OpenSea and Mintable, and is powering some of the largest NFT projects and games including Gods Unchained (the second largest blockchain game by players) Guild of Guardians, Ember Sword, ESL Gaming, GreenPark Sports, Illuvium, Vee Friends, TikTok and many more. Immutable is the parent company of Immutable X and is a developer and publisher of leading NFT games, including Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians. Immutable was founded in 2018 by James Ferguson, Robbie Ferguson and Alex Connolly.
