Bitkraft Ventures leads $9 million seed round in crypto mobile gaming platform Party Icons

Bitkraft Ventures, which has made a number of investments in blockchain video game companies, has led a $9 million seed round in Party Icons, a web3 mobile gaming platform.

Party Icons announced the new investment on Wednesday. The gaming platform also listed several other participants in the seed round, including IDG Capital and The Sandbox co-founder Sebastien Borget. The capital will be used to fuel the development of Party Icons' gaming and social experiences while bolstering its web3 infrastructure, according to a statement.

"Party Icons is on an ambitious mission to blend the social glue of party games with the intensity of extraction shooters," Bitkraft principal Jonathan Huang said in a statement. Like Borget's The Sandbox project, with Party Icons it appears its developers want people to use it as a platform for not only playing games but also socializing. Party Icons currently has "three distinct modes," the statement said.

Bitkraft's investment in Party Icons is one more example that some investors remain keen to fund web3 gaming projects even though not one blockchain-powered title has achieved anything close to mainstream success. And yet, although crypto games have struggled in the past to woo consumers, there have recently been some encouraging developments like the launch of Off the Grid, a battle-royale game that has scored the attention of some traditional gamers. Telegram-based tap-to-earn games also appear to have added millions of new users in a relatively short amount of time.

Party Icons VP of Growth Quinn Campbell said his platform is leaning into consumers' love of "bite-sized" entertainment. "All game modes are designed with modern gaming habits in mind, with most sessions lasting under 12 minutes," he said.

In April, Bitkraft Ventures co-led a $10 million funding round in the crypto gaming studio Avalon.

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