Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd has made a strategic investment in United Arab Emirates (UAE) based gaming startup Farcana to help fuel that company’s beta launch and development within the Bitcoin Ecosystem.
Built with Unreal Engine 5, Farcana is a team arena third-person shooter offering competitive tournaments backed by permanent Bitcoin prize pools. It will be one of the first AAA Web3 games to introduce its 'Free Mint' Bitcoin ordinals.
The game has attracted more than 40,000 users and is planning new tournaments based on initial playtests in Dubai.
Use of funds
Animoca’s investment will propel Farcana towards the goal of becoming a leading gaming studio in the MENA region.
The majority of the new capital will be used for the enhancement of Farcana and its integration within the Bitcoin ecosystem, as the project gears up for a token launch and full game release earlier next year.
Animoca Brands has been collaborating with Farcana on tokenomics and go-to-market strategy since the June quarter of 2023.
With this new investment Animoca Brands maintains its strong level of activity in the MENA region, following the Web3 leader’s recently announced strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia’s NEOM.
Driving Web3 development in MENA
Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu praised Farcana's progress, saying: “We have been working with Farcana over the past year and we’ve been impressed with the development and traction it’s received so far.
"Our strategic investment into Farcana is part of the vision of Animoca Brands to drive Web3 development in MENA; the region is rapidly modernizing and adopting emerging technologies, and we’re excited to support partners such as Farcana as they actively lead the sector and bring exciting products to market.”
“A significant milestone”
In regard to the strategic investment, Farcana founder and CEO Ilman Shazhaev said: "We did amazing work with the Animoca Brands advisory team this year.
"With the redesign of our tokenomics, improvements within the in-game economy, documentation and go-to-market strategy, we had tremendously productive team-to-team collaboration.
"Sometimes I would forget that we were working in different companies.
"This strategic investment from Animoca Brands is definitely a significant milestone for Farcana.
"During the bear market, we were fully focused on building and delivering one of the best games in web3, and we are incredibly excited to bring it to the market next year."
Dubai gaming vision
Earlier this month, Dubai's Crown Prince HH Sheikh Hamdan launched the 'Dubai Program for Gaming 2033' to focus on the areas of talent, content and tech to strengthen the UAE and Dubai’s digital economy.
Farcana views its own work and the involvement of prominent Web3 partners such as Animoca Brands as highly complementary to this bold vision.