Ex-Base Team Scores $21M with Pantera, Makers & Hashed to Level Up Onchain Gaming

[PRESS RELEASE – New York, United States, July 22nd, 2024]

NPC Labs sets sights on bringing 3 billion gamers onchain and expanding blockchain use cases

NPC Labs announces a US$18 million Seed Round led by Pantera Capital, totaling $21 million including Pre-Seed funding. The round also includes notable investors Makers Fund, Hashed, Collab+Currency, Sfermion, Mirana Ventures, Bitscale Capital, and Mantle EcoFund. NPC Labs aims to accelerate the onboarding and development of gaming onchain as a core contributor to B3.fun, a groundbreaking horizontally-scaled gaming ecosystem built on Coinbase’s L2 network, Base.

Founded by Base’s former business and ecosystem development team, NPC Labs is poised to supercharge gaming on Coinbase’s L2 network, accelerating Base’s ambitious mission to bring a billion users onchain and restoring economic freedom for game creators and enthusiasts.

NPC Labs Co-founder & CEO Daryl Xu says: “In today’s hyper-competitive gaming world, developers are having a difficult time bringing their games to market. After spending years creating a game, developers are beholden to publishers to deem their games worthy of support, marketing, and distribution. And when they do, developers give up 70% of the proceeds with the risk of the publisher pulling the game if it’s not generating sufficient revenue. On the flip side, players who grind for consumables, cosmetics and badges are at risk of losing it all should publishing studios say they’re done. Our mission here is simple. We want to help build fun games for the mom in Nebraska while making it dead simple for developers to benefit from being onchain. In other words, we’re placing control back in the hands of game developers and gamers.”

While Web2 game developers understand onchain gaming’s promise, many underestimate the complexities of building a protocol with sufficient liquidity and user base, while simultaneously juggling the infrastructure demands for seamless gameplay.

“In reality, what happens is that — once a game-specific app chain is launched — gaming developers end up siloing their users on an island, creating a fragmented experience with high barriers to entry,” says Viktoriya Hying, NPC Labs Co-founder & COO. “Imagine if every published game had its own console and infrastructure. It’s impractical. Every gamer just wants one place where you can play many games. B3 is that console, and the B3 ecosystem solves these issues by running the chain and providing the infrastructure needed so that developers can focus on providing the best experience for their players.”

B3 was created with built-in chain abstraction, eliminating the need for users to bridge or switch networks. Currently in testnet, B3 initially supports games built on Ethereum, Base, and other EVM chains. With its proprietary and highly-scalable technology stack, B3 can easily onboard games from other chains such as Solana. What users get is a completely seamless experience — they just come in and play!

“Given the success and traction of Base, we were naturally excited to partner with NPC Labs on their vision to elevate the Base ecosystem with B3,” says Franklin Bi, General Partner at Pantera Capital. “While at Base, Daryl and Viktoriya championed many of the best teams building in the Base ecosystem today by understanding their needs deeply, especially in gaming and consumer applications. B3’s infrastructure and tooling will bring a new dimension to Base by empowering developers to build great games and onchain experiences for consumers.”

Developers can learn more about building games onchain at https://docs.b3.fun/

About NPC Labs

Founded by Base’s former core team, NPC Labs is poised to supercharge gaming on Coinbase’s L2 network. NPC Labs is a core contributor to B3.fun, a groundbreaking horizontally-scaled gaming ecosystem built on Base. Passionate about the Base ecosystem, NPC Labs is helping scale the network for the next generation of onchain gamers. We envision the future of onchain gaming as a seamless, open ecosystem that shifts the paradigm of ownership & incentives for the gaming ecosystem. Learn more about NPC Labs at https://npclabs.org/.

About B3.fun

B3.fun, governed by the Player1 Foundation, is a groundbreaking horizontally-scaled gaming ecosystem built on Base, Coinbase’s L2 network. Designed for seamless and scalable gaming experiences, B3 supports a variety of EVM chains and offers unrivaled infrastructure for game developers. Learn more at https://basement.fun. Follow B3’s latest developments on X (Twitter), Tumblr, and Warpcast.

Developers can head to https://docs.b3.fun/ and learn more about building games onchain.

About Pantera Capital

Pantera Capital is the first institutional investment firm focused exclusively on bitcoin, other digital currencies, and companies in the blockchain tech ecosystem. Pantera launched the first cryptocurrency fund in the United States when bitcoin was at $65/BTC in 2013. The firm subsequently launched the first exclusively blockchain venture fund. In 2017, Pantera was the first firm to offer an early-stage token fund. Pantera manages $6bn across three strategies – passive, hedge, and venture.