Shrapnel studio Neon Machine has secured another $20 million in funding, weeks out from release of the blockchain shooter’s much-anticipated early-access build.
Polychain Capital led the series A round, with additional investment from Griffin Gaming Partners, Brevan Howard Digital, Franklin Templeton, IOSG Ventures and Tess Ventures, according to reports.
Neon had already raised $10.5 million in a 2021 seed round, and picked up another $7 million from a private token sale in April.
Raising money in the current environment had been difficult, Neon CEO Mark Long told VentureBeat.
“I’ve had a couple of colleagues who have not been able to raise their next round, or they’ve had to make a significant change in their valuation. But we’re very fortunate,” Long said.
Shrapnel is an extraction FPS built on the Avalanche blockchain. It’s a free-to-play multiplayer game that is expected to launch in full in 2024. The early-access build is due for release in December.
The premise of Shrapnel is that the earth is being bombarded by fragments of an asteroid, rendering a swathe of the globe uninhabitable.
The fragments (Sigma) are valuable, and must be collected by operators who, armed to the teeth, venture into the forbidden zone.
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