Vmates, a play-to-earn gaming platform, announced last month it secured strategic financing from numerous investors, including Marshland Capital, Moonrock Capital, Magnus Capital and Vendetta Capital.
The Minneapolis-based startup mints virtual pets and establishes them as NFTs on the blockchain. Players then buy into the game and develop their virtual pets while networking and playing games. Users can also earn income by trading and cooperating in challenges.
Vmates is known as a GameFi company, which exists at the intersection of gaming and cryptocurrency.
While it seems obscure, Vmates has over 29,000 Twitter followers and over 4,000 users on the live chat platform Discord.
Vmates' founder, Xinyuan "Yuan" An, is a University of Minnesota graduate who has been involved in digital currency since 2013, according to his bio.
"We're truly humbled by the strong support from our new partners across the globe. This new investment will help further our mission of building a social GameFi metaverse platform," An said in a statement. "As we are moving towards the asset ownership-based gaming economies, we truly believe Vmates will play a major role in this new GameFi phenomenon."
GameFi platforms are fast becoming a leading trend in the crypto world.
Bloomberg has a report that almost 50% of active cryptocurrency wallets were connected to GameFi apps in November. Meanwhile, the share connected to decentralized finance fell to 45%.
