Metatheory, a Web3 entertainment company founded by Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, has raised $24 million.
Metatheory, which launched in Q3 last year, is focused on building Web3 games and virtual worlds imagined across innovative new story franchise IPs.
The Series A round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with cryptocurrency firms Pantera Capital and FTX Ventures participating in the round, in addition to Breyer Capital, Merit Circle, Recharge Thematic Ventures, Dragonfly Capital Partners, Daedalus, Sfermion and Global Coin Research.
“Building immersive digital experiences has always been a passion of mine, and after stepping away from Twitch to explore what’s next in the industry, I truly believe blockchain will open the door to even more possibilities and have a major impact in the gaming, storytelling and community building space,” said Lin.
“At Metatheory, we’ve built a team of industry vets who are focused on embracing blockchain across multiple media categories with a focus on elevating standards of customer experience and shared ownership.”
Metatheory is leveraging the gaming space as its first creative canvas into the Web3 world, with a heavy focus on building franchises with strong IP that live beyond the games themselves.
“Metatheory is redefining how games and stories are told from the bottom up using Web3 primitives, and we couldn’t be more excited to partner with CEO Kevin Lin, a proven leader and company builder,” said Jonathan Lai, Andreessen Horowitz.
Metatheory’s first game franchise DuskBreakers, which was released in December 2021 with world art designed by Geersart, former lead illustrator at Twitch, is a sci-fi inspired metaverse and gaming experience powered by blockchain.
DuskBreakers launched with an innovative free-to-play ‘Play-to-Mint’ game that led to a sellout of 10,000 NFTS (the Genesis DuskBreakers) in just six days.
The genesis NFTs each represent one of the first 10,000 recruited ‘Breakers’ who spend their days exploring a massive, dormant alien spaceship – ‘The Dusk’ – hovering above the earth.
On the Dusk, Breakers seek valuable ‘Duskite’ materials while fending off the extraterrestrial creatures roaming the ship. The choices the Breakers make as a community will irrevocably change the course of history across an exciting new alternate universe, unfolding across NFTs, comics, animations and video games.
Amy Wu, head of ventures and commercial, FTX Ventures, added: “Kevin Lin is one of the most experienced founders in creating digital communities and has done so already with the DuskBreakers NFT collection. We’re thrilled to support him in taking the project to the next stage as a live game.”
In January 2022, Metatheory released DuskBreakers second free-to-play minigame, ‘Beast Battler’, centred around boss battling in the same environment as the first minigame. Additional NFT drops, games and content are set to release throughout the year and beyond, with a full free-to-play game with Play-and-Earn mechanics scheduled for launch in Q4.