- Griffin Gaming Partners has announced a $750 million fund which now makes it one of the largest VC firms targeting the gaming industry exclusively.
- The firm will focus on Web3 and blockchain-based play-to-earn games, with more than half the company’s investments in 2021 going to this rapidly growing sector.
As blockchain-based games explode in popularity, investors are piling in to invest in the next big thing. Griffin Gaming Partners is one of the firms leading this march, and in its latest fundraising round, the firm brought in $750 million to invest in blockchain and Web3 gaming ventures. It now becomes one of the largest funds targeting gaming startups, with its leaders touting blockchain and digital asset integration in videogames as one of the most significant leaps in gaming history.
In its March 7 announcement, the firm revealed that its second fund had been oversubscribed as investors clamor for opportunities in gaming. The company had raised $250 million in its first fund and has invested in massively successful projects including messaging platform Discord, gaming blockchain Forte, mobile tech firm AppLovin and more.
With over $1 billion in assets under management, Griffin is now one of the largest VC funds singularly focused on the global gaming market.
Gaming has become one of the biggest industries globally, with the COVID-19 lockdowns fuelling the industry’s growth even further as games like Fortnite gained mainstream popularity. According to NewZoo, the sector generated $180 billion in revenues in 2021 and is expected to hit $256 billion in 2025. Over 3 billion people spend at least an hour playing a game every day, making gaming bigger than movies, music, and books combined.
Related: 77% of people don’t want Facebook running the metaverse as 93% endorse play-to-earn games: Survey
Even as it invests in gaming startups that show promise, Griffin will be mostly focused on Web3 and blockchain games. The sector has exploded over the past year as players recognized the earning potential play-to-earn games present.
Nick Tuosto, the managing partner at Griffin told one news outlet:
Web 3 is one of our central theses from a macro perspective within games. It’s our view that the enablement of digital asset ownership within games may be the single most important technological unlock in the history of games.
Since its inception to date, Griffin has invested in 16 ventures related to Web 3, accounting for more than half the deployed capital, the company revealed.
Phil Sanderson, a managing director at the firm summarized the company’s approach to investment, “We kind of set out with some general parameters that we’d be half early-stage, half late-stage, which was pretty much exactly what the first fund was.”
“And we’re already tracking similarly with Fund Two. We’re half content, half infrastructure platform, and then roughly half domestic and half international, and that’s played out, even with Covid.”
Related: Polygon teams up with Reddit co-founder for $200M Web 3.0 gaming initiative
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