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Australian gaming platform closes $200M funding round led by Temasek

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Australian gaming startup Immutable has raised $200-million funds spearheaded by Singapore’s Temasek in a Series C round that is valued at $2.5 billion. According to the firm’s tweet, the funds would help fuel its mission to make NFTs mainstream through high-quality blockchain games. Other investors who took part in the funding exercise include Mirae Asset, ParaFi Capital, Declaration Partners, Tencent Holdings, and others, Immutable said.

Immutable’s co-founder and president, Robbie Ferguson, said, “We’re excited to raise this capital so we can help deploy it aggressively through M&A opportunities,”

The e-sports firm which has its headquarter in Sydney is the developer of NFT games “Gods Unchained”, an online game where trading is done through NFT cards, and “Guild of Guardians”, a mobile game that allows players to earn tradeable rewards.

In February, it announced a partnership with GameStop to launch the videogame retailer’s NFT marketplace alongside a fund worth $100 million dedicated to supporting creators of NFT content from gaming studios, Web3, and metaverse gaming.

Crypto-Gaming boom

The number of blockchain games grew to more than 544 active dApps by the end of 2021, up from about 200 the year before, according to DappRadar. Oscar Franklin Tan, CFO of Enjin, who recently invested in a decentralized accelerator believes that blockchain gaming is the biggest disrupter to the gaming industry.

On March 7, this year, a venture firm called Griffin Partners has raised $750 million focusing to penetrate the broader gaming industry with an eye on Web 3. Nick Tuosto, co-founder and managing director of the firm views that the “enablement of digital asset ownership within games may be the single most important technological unlock in the history of games.”

Coming back to the news, Immutable has built a new scaling solution for NFTs that allows transactions to take place at a much faster rate compared to Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain network. Dubbed as Immutable X, it claims that the protocol requires low computing power and has a smaller environmental impact.

Previously in last September, the Sydney-based start-up had acquired $60 million funds for its platform built on top of Ethereum to monetize NFTs in games.

Singapore’s Temasek-led funding round raises Amber’s valuation by $3B

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Singapore’s native investment firm Temasek Holdings was among the top investors to lead a $200 million funding round for a leading global digital asset platform Amber Group boosting its valuation by $3 billion, just weeks amidst the city-state clamp down on marketing by crypto firms. 

Others who participated in the Series B extension round include Sequoia China, Pantera Capital, and Tiger Global Management according to the press release by Amber Group via Twitter on 22nd February 2022.

Singapore is one of Asia’s most sought-after markets for crypto startups, and Temasek and its subsidiaries have made several investments in the past year. Chief Executive Officer Michael Wu said that Amber deliberately extended its Series B funding round, which was originally announced back in June, in order to onboard Temasek as an investor. 

Wu in an interview said, “They are very strategic, so we made this special effort to bring them in.” The chief exec also revealed that Amber may seek another funding round later this year ahead of an initial public offering that could take place in the second half of 2023, most probably in the U.S.

Furthermore Amber plans to utilize the proceeds to fund its hiring activities across Europe and America and expand its footprint through a mobile application it launched last year globally, as per the statement.

Crypto and blockchain occupies the major chunk in Singapore’s fintech funding

According to the KPMG Pulse of FinTech 2021 report, a record 191 fintech deals drove Singapore’s fintech investment to $3.94 billion last year. Of that, crypto and blockchain funding occupies the major part with $1.48 billion in size with 82 deals. The exponential growth of investment reflects the growing recognition of the potential role of crypto and its underlying technologies in legacy financial systems.

Anton Ruddenklau, Global Fintech Leader at KPMG believes that cryptocurrencies and blockchain are expected to remain the most preferred areas of investment in 2022, with more crypto firms seeking regulatory clearance in order to help boost and develop the space. In Singapore especially, the rise in crypto investments has managed to surpass that of payments which held the top spot so far.

Singapore’s Project Ubin, Blockchain Payment System, Getting Ready for Commercial Launch

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The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) revealed in a joint statement with Temasek the successful completion of the fifth and final stage of Project Ubin. The report presents an overview of the multi-currency payment system for cross-border settlements based on the blockchain. The report also provides insights into how the prototype of payments could help both the financial sector and the blockchain industry.

Benefits of the blockchain payments system

The payment network prototype created in partnership with Temasek and JP Morgan could facilitate faster and less costly cross-border money transfers. In addition, MAS noted that the technical details of the functionalities of the blockchain payment system and the connectivity interfaces would be publicly available to promote further innovations.

During phase 5 of Project Singapore’s Blockchain Payment Ubin, blockchain payment networks have completed payments in different currencies on the same network. Payment watchdogs pointed out that an international payment system modeled on their prototype could boost payment time and allow cheaper transaction fees than traditional global transfer models.

In use cases such as Delivery-versus-Payment (DvP) using digital currencies held in private exchanges, the application of smart contracts on the blockchain payment network was confirmed. Chief FinTech Officer of MAS, Mr. Sopnendu Mohanty, commented on the new prototype, noting that the regulator is anticipating further adoption and implementation of blockchain technology.

Singapore watchdog bracing for more blockchain adoption

Moving forward, the joint report by Temasek and the MAS claims that the commercial use cases of the blockchain payment network include cross-border payments in multiple currencies, foreign currency exchange, and settlement of foreign currency-denominated securities. 

In conclusion, the watchdog noted that the payments prototype could be linked with other platforms based on the blockchain to facilitate full digitization across as many sectors and applications as possible.

Temasek Holdings CEO Hit By Fake Stories Linking Her To ‘Wealth Loophole’

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The world has seen a massive rise in cybercrime after the rapid development of technology and with that the internet. In today’s time, it has become very easy to run a scam on the internet and the latest victim of such an activity was Madam Ho Ching, the Chief Executive Officer [CEO] of Temasek Holdings. 

Recent reports showed that fake portals were issuing articles on their website that stated how Ho Ching made a lot of money using ‘financial loopholes’. 

Ho Ching is also the wife of the current Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong. Her connection to the political leader is also seen as a reason for this defamation. The Monetary Authority of Singapore warned that websites were posing as legitimate portals to publish fake news.

One website posed as The Strait Times and published a piece that claimed: “Ching’s latest investment has experts in awe and big banks terrified”. While there was no mention of any backing for the statement, the article continued to shed light on the fake news. The piece also added that Singaporean citizens were ranking in millions of dollars sitting at home because of the same wealth loophole.

The usage of Mdm Ching’s photo has also drawn her comments, blasting the portals for it. She stated that such practices were wrong and that people should not fall for it as she would never endorse such efforts. Her Facebook post back in November said:

“These fake articles talk about fantastical ways of making money from bitcoins and such like, and pretend there are loopholes for multiplying your money quickly.They sometimes use old pictures of me, and other fake news would use newer pictures of me, photoshopped in front various banks.Pls report to Facebook, WhatsApp, or whichever social media channel you have been seeing this.More importantly, don’t get scammed or conned into investing into this or that get rich schemes.”

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has been very serious when it comes to such malpractices because of its efforts to promote digital money. The body is also responsible for bringing in technological changes as blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies into the country.

This was not the first time that Singapore was hit with such a scam as other politicians had also been affected earlier. Last year, Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies Tharman Shanmugaratnam was also hit by such a scandal. He also serves as the Chairman of the Monetary Authority of MAS.

 

Source:CNA