Immutable, a Sydney, Australia-based platform for trading NFTs on Ethereum, raised $200m in Series C financing.
The round, which brings its valuation to $2.5 billion, was led by Temasek, with participation from Animoca Brands, and Tencent, new backers ParaFi Capital, Princeville Capital, Arrington Capital, Mirae Asset and Liberty Global and existing backers King River Capital, Prosus Ventures, AirTree Ventures, Declaration Partners, Fabric Ventures, Possible Ventures and Alameda Research.
The company intends to use the capital to plans to use the funds to hire an additional 200 new employees globally over the next 12 months in sales, marketing, engineering and product, to scale to meet the increasing demand for its platform, to expand into new verticals, to support gaming partners, to acquire new customers, and to explore M&A opportunities.
Founded in 2018 by James Ferguson, Robbie Ferguson and Alex Connolly, Immutable provides Immutable X, which is an NFT technology platform focused on Layer 2 liquidity solutions that bring scalability 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.
Immutable X has already announced integrations with 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 more. Immutable is also a developer and publisher of NFT games, including Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians. The company, which has a team of 165 people, aims to accelerate plans for global expansion, investing in the Immutable X platform, and scale the Immutable Gaming Studio, including its flagship games Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians.
Current companies building on Immutable X include GameStop, TikTok, Opensea, Ember Sword, Illuvium, GreenPark Sports, and Gary Vee (Vee Friends). 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.
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.
FinSMEs
07/03/2022