Author: Chris Davis and Michael Furci, Messari analysts; Translated by: 0xjs@Golden Finance
In August, the Web3 gaming sector led in terms of transaction count, with 24 projects receiving funding and raising a total of $66.4 million.
In the Web3 game, the past month has seen an uptick in investor interest in projects based on TON, the layer-1 blockchain integrated with Telegram:
Telegram native project
Fanton ($1M Seed Round from Animoca Brands, Delphi Ventures, and Hashkey)
Televerse ($1M Seed Round led by Summer Capital)
TonTon Games (Binance Labs Accelerator)
Projects Expanding to TON
SnakeLite ($4M Seed Round led by Red Point)
GAMEE (led by Pantera Capital, undisclosed round).
Kokomo Games (undisclosed round, participants included DAO Jones, Steve Aoki, Mike Shinoda)
In addition to these funding rounds, the recently launched $40 million TON Ventures fund focuses on early-stage projects and the $2.5 million incubation program lays a solid foundation for future growth.
Since the announcement of the Telegram Web3 ecosystem in November 2023, TON has seen a surge in adoption, with more than 300 mini-games now playable directly in the Telegram app. Casual games such as Hamster Kombat, Catizen, and Yescoin have attracted millions of users and generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
According to Inal Kardan, the former head of games at the TON Foundation, about 20% of Telegram users currently play at least one game per month — a significant increase from 1% in December 2023.
The success of the TON gaming ecosystem highlights the principle of “distribution is king” in the Web3 gaming space. With approximately 950 million monthly active users, Telegram is a huge distribution channel for mobile games.
According to the 2023 Newzoo Games Report, mobile games generated $89.9 billion in revenue in 2023, accounting for 49% of the total game revenue of $183.9 billion.
However, Web3 mobile development and distribution has historically been hampered by app store restrictions. By removing some of the challenges in Web3 mobile game development and enabling distribution to hundreds of millions of users, TON offers a promising path for future growth and investment in the space.
However, there are some important considerations to keep in mind:
While demand for TON is clearly accelerating, with on-chain transactions recently exceeding 1 billion, only a portion of the small game player base is on-chain.
While many games are reporting strong adoption metrics, parsing bot activity from real player engagement remains a challenge.
Recent legal events, including the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and investigations into Telegram by governments around the world, could have a ripple effect that affects the development of the ecosystem.
Nonetheless, it’s clear that TON’s mini-game ecosystem continues to see widespread adoption over the past year, attracting interest from a number of high-profile investors.
Other recent notable financings:
Arch — A lending platform that provides crypto-backed loans. They raised $5 million in a seed round led by Morgan Creek Digital and Castle Island Ventures. In addition, they announced $70 million in debt financing from Galaxy Digital.
Bridge — a platform that provides an API to enable stablecoin payments. They raised $58 million in two rounds led by Sequoia and Ribbit Capital.
Space and Time — a verifiable computation layer that scales zero-knowledge proofs on decentralized data warehouses. They raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Framework Ventures, Arrington XRP Capital, Faction VC, and Hivemind Capital Partners.
Hypernative — A Web3 security and risk detection platform. They raised $16 million in a Series A round led by Quantstamp, with participation from Bloccelerate, Borderless Capital, and others. kulink
doublejump.tokyo — A blockchain game studio based in Japan. They raised $10 million in a Series D round led by SBI Investments, with participation from Sony. The funds will be used in part to advance the development of Sony Group’s blockchain “Soneium”.
