ZEBEDEE, a bitcoin-only gaming developer, has secured $35 million in a series B fundraising event to scale circular economies in virtual worlds, according to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.
The funding will be used to scale ZEBEDEE’s team allowing them to meet the needs of its increasing user base which witnessed a 10x increase since the startup’s initial funding round this past September. The fast-paced growth, as the company explains, has been in part due to innovative partnerships with existing gaming studios and integrations with blockchain industry experts.
“We are pleased to be in a position where we can confidently scale our team and grow our business even as the macroeconomic backdrop becomes increasingly uncertain,” said Simon Cowell, CEO of ZEBEDEE. “This funding round gives us the ability to meet our highly ambitious roadmap both in terms of building out our infrastructure to support the hundreds of millions of users that play our partners’ games, as well as hire the top-level talent needed to ensure every partner has the best possible experience working with ZEBEDEE.”
ZEBEDEE creates a circular economy allowing its users to earn bitcoin across multiple video games by leveraging the Lightning Network, a layer two application built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain which enables users to have access to instant, low-cost micropayments in bitcoin.
ZEBEDEE offers a suite of application programming interfaces (API) suites, as well as applications for developers which can allow any gaming developer to create a virtual bitcoin economy. Examples of a virtual economy would be earning bitcoin every time you collect a coin as Mario, or each time you shoot someone in a CS:GO match.
“We have seen new monetization methods disrupt the gaming industry in the past, and we believe the integration of Bitcoin directly into games is a new way to expand the connection with players and engage them in ways that were never possible before,” said Kenny Lee, VP at Raine Group. “The wide range of use cases for ZEBEDEE’s platform provides flexibility for the game designer and allows ZEBEDEE to partner with any developer, from AAA console and PC to hyper-casual mobile.”
Lead investors included Square Enix Holdings, Kingsway Capital, and The Raine Group.