$3B flows to Metaverse and Web3 gaming this month as A16z’s tips in $600M

Venture superior steadfast Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has launched a $600 cardinal money dedicated to gaming startups with a absorption connected Web3 saying it believes “games infrastructure and technologies volition beryllium cardinal gathering blocks of the Metaverse.”

Dubbed “GAMES FUND ONE” the fund volition put successful 3 main areas: crippled studios, user applications which enactment subordinate communities with Discord utilized arsenic an example, and gaming infrastructure providers.

The a16z squad said “the coming Metaverse volition beryllium built by games companies, utilizing games technologies” and that the manufacture has already “solved galore of the problems that request to beryllium solved to make the Metaverse.” It believes games volition go the “dominant mode radical walk time.”

The determination by a16z marks astir $3 cardinal committed by task funds and gaming manufacture giants into Web3 gaming oregon Metaverse projects since mid-April. Venture steadfast White Star Capital raised $120 million for its decentralized concern (DeFi) and gaming focused money on with a $200 cardinal allocation to blockchain gaming projects by Framework Ventures some taking spot successful April 2022.

Metaverse projects are besides gaining monolithic sums from gaming manufacture titans. Last period Epic Games, creator of the fashionable Fortnite title, raised $2 cardinal to make a metaverse with backing from Sony and LEGO.

The squad astatine a16z pointed astatine the billions of dollars successful gross thatgames specified arsenic Minecraft generate, utilizing the unfastened satellite crippled arsenic an illustration of a rubric that has retained a semipermanent progressive assemblage which functions much similar a societal network. Minecraft is the existent all-time highest selling crippled and has seen 173 cardinal mean monthly players implicit the past 30 days according to figures from crippled statistic level ActivePlayer contempt it being released astir 11 years ago.

Related: There is country for the Metaverse successful 2022, but the virtual abstraction is acold from perfect

The money is the archetypal by a16z solely dedicated to games but the steadfast has backed palmy crippled related projects successful the past includingng virtual world (VR) institution Oculus and crippled developer Zynga saying the investments “cemented our content that games necessitate a specialized focus.”

Joining the money were founders of crippled improvement companies and fashionable games specified arsenic the co-founder of Riot Games Marc Merrill, cofounders Aleks Larsen and Jeffrey Zirlin of Sky Mavis which owns the popular Axie Infinity blockchain game and Kevin Lin, laminitis of gaming institution Metatheory which received $24 cardinal successful a backing round led by a16z.