Animoca Brand’s Subsidiary TinyTap Closes $8.5 Million Funding Round

TinyTap – a technological startup that empowers users to create different educational game-based activities – secured an $8.5 million fundraiser.

The company, which is a subsidiary of the blockchain gaming platform Animoca Brands, will use the funds to accelerate its product development and hire more staff.

• Several giants in the finance field led the multi-million funding round, including Sequoia Capital, Liberty City Ventures, Shima Capital, and Kingsway Capital. Polygon also participated in the financing.
• The Tel Aviv-based TinyTap said it will use the money to expand its team and enhance product development. Co-founder Yogev Shelly claimed the firm was supposed to secure the fundraiser last year, but the uncertainty in the cryptocurrency market halted the effort:

“We started in October and within a month reached 80% of what we aimed for in the round. By November, some big investors who had soft committed for a large part of the funding had to fold due to certain fallout and rising uncertainty. As a result, the round took a bit longer to close, and we had more to prove.”

• TinyTap jumped on the crypto bandwagon last year by introducing Publisher non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
• Animoca Brands’ co-founder Yat Siu believes the move was beneficial to teachers and educators who are the main customers of the application:

“Teachers and educators are among the most important content creators and contributors in society, and yet their wages typically do not reflect their critical importance. This is why we’re incredibly excited at the Web3 opportunities that TinyTap is exploring in the field of education.”