Proof of Play, a company led by Farmville co-creator Amitt Mahajan, has raised $33 million to create Web3 games. The funding round was co-led by Chris Dixon at Andreessen Horowitz of a16z Crypto and Neil Mehta at Greenoaks.
Introducing Proof of Play, an onchain game studio & technology company.
We are delighted to announce our $33m seed round led by @a16z and Greenoaks, with participation from incredible angels & founders incl. @naval @balajis @justinkan @jtwald @immad @nikil @gabusch & many more. pic.twitter.com/c2BPShTdik
— Proof of Play (@ProofOfPlay) September 21, 2023
Other investors included Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, and the founders of the streaming platform Twitch, as well as Web3 firms Anchorage Digital, Mercury, Firebase, Zynga, and Alchemy. Proof of Play aims to create fully on-chain games that quickly immerse players in fun gameplay.
Another Company Sets Its Sights on Web3 Technology
The company believes it can overcome many of the roadblocks players commonly encounter when attempting to play Web3 games. It claims to possess a set of technological and product innovations that will quickly immerse players in fun gameplay without needing to learn about blockchain first. The company is committed to decentralization.
Its first game, Pirate Nation, is a “Forever Game” that can be run without external servers or creator intervention. Proof of Play intends to open-source its technology framework in the future to further decentralize. Initially launched on Polygon, Pirate Nation later transitioned to Arbitrum Nova, another Ethereum scaling network, earlier this year in pursuit of lower network fees.
Despite being blockchain-based, Proof of Play asserts that players can modify and contribute their own content to the game, thereby customizing and enhancing it continuously.
FarmVille, which holds the title of Facebook’s most popular game, has been enjoyed by over 300 million individuals, as stated by Proof of Play. Amitt Mahajan, the creator of FarmVille, held an executive position at Zynga before establishing Toro, a company that Google later acquired. Mahajan asserts that his early experiences in the gaming industry provided him with valuable insights.
The team at Proof of Play includes members from several large gaming and web companies, including Epic Games, Zynga, EA, Activision, and Google. This funding will undoubtedly boost the development of Web3 games, contributing to the growth of the blockchain gaming industry.
