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Battlebound, the stealth gaming startup behind the anonymously launched Web3 game Evaverse, has raised more than $4.8 million in funding and is gearing up to bring its first title to mobile devices, dot.LA has learned.
Backed by at least 14 unnamed investors, according to a filing with the SEC, the Los Angeles-based company is led by founder and CEO Adam Hensel, a former Riot Games technical artist known pseudonymously as Damos. Battlebound’s team also includes former Riot Games concept artist David Ko, per Ko’s Twitter account.
While little else is known about the gaming startup’s founding team, a teaser page shows that they’ve previously worked on titles such as Riot’s “League of Legends,” ArenaNet’s “Guild Wars,” Blizzard’s “Overwatch 2” and Rovio’s “Angry Birds.”
An “Evaverse” character spins a machine for a potential prize.Courtesy of Battlebound
Evaverse, which Battlebound has dubbed a “best in class play-to-earn wonderland,” is part of a wave of blockchain games that reward players with crypto tokens and use NFTs as playable characters. The priciest Evaverse NFT—a bald, magenta-bearded, Thanos-esque character named Yolo McSwagginz—is listed on the NFT marketplace OpenSea for 120 Ethereum, or more than $348,000 as of press time.
Battlebound has described Evaverse as being built for a community of “blockchain players, traditional gamers, and NFT collectors” alike. The game is currently available on both PC and Mac via the Steam gaming platform, while its Discord community features more than 7,000 members.
Though new blockchain gaming entrants like Battlebound and L.A-based Artie seem to launch on a weekly basis, last year the NFT gaming scene was largely dominated by one particular title: “Axie Infinity,” which was launched by Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis in 2018 and reportedly accounted for nearly two-thirds of all gaming NFT transactions last year.
Representatives for Battlebound declined to comment.
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