Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong blockchain startup, has raised $88,888,888 at a valuation of $1B.

The businesses have come a long way, since its delisting from the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).

Capital, RIT Capital Partners (formerly Rothschild Investment Trust), HashKey Fintech, Huobi, Ellerston Capital, and others were among the key investors.

The business is a significant player in nonfungible token-based collectible games (NFTs). It runs the F1 Delta Time game, which allows users to purchase collectible vehicles.

Although collectors may be willing to pay exorbitant prices for NFTs in 2021, this was not the case in 2019, when Animoca was auctioning NFTs for Formula One cars for tens of thousands of dollars.

The game includes a REVV token, and Animoca has MotoGP privileges.

The Sandbox is another Animoca game in which players can purchase NFT land tokens in a virtual world. Animoca’s Sandbox subsidiary raised $2 million in late 2019 to help finance the title.

In August of last year, the company revealed that future games would use the Flow Blockchain from Dapper Labs, the developer of NBA Top Shot.

Animoca has also made Dapper Labs, Opensea, Bitski, Axie Infinity, and other companies.

According to the company, the money will be used for acquisitions, product development, securing rights or licences, and other investments.

Deng Chao, CEO of HashKey Group, said, “We always maintained that gaming would be one of the first major adopters of blockchain, and Animoca Brands is the top game-changer in this area.”

“As a blockchain-focused gaming company, it not only understands blockchain games and NFTs but also has strong development skills in traditional games.”

Animoca got into trouble with the ASX in 2019 when it downgraded previously announced sales estimates from A$13 million to A$8.3 million for the half-year to June 2019.

Many improvements were linked to cryptocurrency and token sales accounting, with auditors taking a cautious approach. Animoca explained the delisting as a result of ASX’s concerns about the company’s cryptocurrency exposure. There’s a chance that’s true.

However, as a publicly traded firm, Animoca may have spared the ASX’s scrutiny if it had overcome the accounting treatment before releasing unaudited figures.