Reddit co-founder helps Ethereum-based card game raise $5 million

3 min read

Mar 9, 2020Mar 9, 2020

Horizon Blockchain Games, the developer of upcoming Ethereum-based collectible card game SkyWeaver, has announced $5 million in newly raised funding to help release the game and its blockchain development toolkit.

The latest round was led by Initialized Capital, the investment firm co-founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian—an outspoken fan of SkyWeaver who often tweets about its beta test. New investors ConsenSys (which, incidentally, also funds Decrypt), CMT Digital, and Regah Ventures are also part of the round, as well as previous investors Golden Ventures, DCG, and Polychain.

Horizon previously raised $3.75 million in a 2019 seed round, and according to TechCrunch, the company considers this latest raise to be an extension of that round.

“We’re honoured to have the strategic and financial backing of world-class partners and experts to supercharge our vision,” wrote Horizon co-founder Peter Kieltyka, in a blog post. “We’ll use these funds to deliver our first game to market and continue to build and evolve our blockchain infrastructure for open and standardized virtual items.”

SkyWeaver is like a crypto-infused take on Blizzard’s popular Hearthstone, letting players own their cards as unique digital assets. The free-to-play PC, Mac, iOS, and Android game tokenizes cards as ERC-1155 tokens, and they can be sold within the game or via external marketplaces that support the standard. SkyWeaver’s unique system only mints rare Gold cards for players who top the weekly leaderboards, and then those can be purchased or won by other players.

Currently in a limited closed beta, SkyWeaver is expected to launch an open beta later this year. It will have some competition, however: Immutable’s Gods Unchained is already establishing itself in the space, and built some buzz off of a Blizzard controversy late last year. Dark Country, a crypto card game with an American gothic aesthetic, is also due out this year.

SkyWeaver is not only being positioned as a crypto game for players, but also a showcase of the company’s blockchain platform for game developers. Dubbed Arcadeum, Horizon’s Ethereum-based blockchain stack creates a standard for digital in-game assets that are player-owned and cross-compatible between games. Like Enjin’s recently-launched Enjin Platform, it could help open up blockchain to more and more game creators.

“Similarly to how Epic Games released Unreal to showcase the Unreal Engine, we’re releasing SkyWeaver to showcase our blockchain stack for open virtual worlds with novel player incentives and new monetization possibilities,” Kieltyka added.