Blockchain game developer Planetarium Labs raises $32 mn 

Planetarium Labs raised $32 million in a Series A funding round, led by Animoca Brands, and joined by Samsung Next, WeMade, and Krust Universe.

The startup is an open-source, community-driven Web3 game company focused on delivering the future of entertainment through decentralized content and technologies. 

Animoca Brands is a Hong Kong-based game software company and venture capital firm founded in 2014.

Samsung Next is the venture capital arm of Samsung Electronics Co. and Krust Universe is part of Kakao Corp. WeMade is a game developer, also based in South Korea.

Planetarium Labs’s corporate value is currently estimated as exceeding 300 billion won ($231 million).

The new estimate is more than 30 times that of January 2021, when it was estimated to be worth about 10 billion won. Naver Corp. injected funds into Planetarium then.

This January, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance also invested in Planetarium. 

Planetarium Labs is best known for its blockchain-based role-playing game (RPG) Nine Chronicles. 

The game uses its own blockchain game engine dubbed Libplanet. This allows players to play a major role in the open-source content development and participate in the game network. 

Nine Chronicles is recognized as the world’s sole decentralized game, which means there is no central server that operates the game. 

In a joint statement, the company’s co-CEOs Seo Ki-jun and JC Kim said, “The future of gaming is on building a shared vision based on collaboration between players and community.”

They added, “We are delighted to welcome partners who will be with us to realize the vision of creating a game that belongs to a community.”

Write to Joo-Wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.