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Farmville co-creator-led company raises $33M to create Web3 games

September 21, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Farmville co-creator-led company raises M to create Web3 games

Coin Telegraph

Proof of Play raised $33 million to create fully on-chain games that “quickly immerse players in fun gameplay.“

Proof of Play, a company led by Farmville co-creator Amitt Mahajan, raised $33 million to create Web3 games, according to a Sept. 21 announcement. Majahan is the CEO of Proof of Play, and Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear is a board member.

The funding was co-led by Chris Dixon at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Neil Mehta at Greenoaks. Investors Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan and the founders of streaming platform Twitch also participated, as well as Web3 firms Anchorage Digital, Mercury, Firebase, Zynga and Alchemy.

Proof of Play released a closed beta of its first game, Pirate Nation, in December 2022.

*Pirate Nation Web3 game. Source: Proof of Play*

In its announcement, the company claimed it can overcome many roadblocks players commonly encounter when attempting to play Web3 games. It stated that it possesses “a set of technological and product innovations” that will “quickly immerse players in fun gameplay” without learning about blockchain first.

Proof of Play also stated that it is committed to decentralization. Pirate Nation is a “Forever Game” that can be run without external servers or creator intervention, adding that the company intends to open-source its technology framework in the future to decentralize further.

The Proof of Play team includes members from several large gaming and web companies, including Epic Games, Zynga, EA, Activision and Google.

Multimillion-dollar funding rounds from Web3 companies have become the norm in 2023. EVE Online developer CCP Games raised $40 million in March to develop a new spinoff EVE game, and Hyperplay raised $12 million in June to further develop its distribution platform and Steam competitor.

LinksDAO likely to put in ‘compelling offer’ to buy Scottish golf course

February 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

If the final tally remains in favor of the purchase, the LinksDAO acquisition committee will officially put out a “compelling offer” to purchase the golf course.

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)-operated golf startup, LinksDAO, may soon put in an offer to purchase the newly marketed Spey Bay Golf Club in Scotland worth about $900,000.

LinksDAO — self-described as a “global group of golf enthusiasts” that is on a mission to build the “world’s greatest golf community” — officially opened the proposal vote on Feb. 20, which came after a few weeks of informal deliberation.

It would be the DAO’s first ever golf course purchase.

few things in life are more fun than doing what you said you were going to do, regardless of adversity

i will love the @linksdao core team, contributors and members forever for delivering 110%

bear markets mean nothing when passion meets greatnesshttps://t.co/1iqvi1sHIx pic.twitter.com/qQGLYxlB9F
— Mike Dudas (@mdudas) February 21, 2023

While voting officially closes on Feb. 22 at 12pm Eastern Time, over 88% of the 4,100 LinksDAO token holders have already voted in favor of the proposal.

If the final tally remains in favor of the purchase, the LinksDAO acquisition committee will meet with the relevant parties required to construct a “compelling offer” for the purchase of the club “with the full intent of successfully purchasing the golf course,” the proposal stated.

*The current voting tally of LinksDAO token holders on the proposal to put in an offer for the Scottish golf course.* *Source: LinksDAO*

The authors of the proposal — “Bez”, “Jim”, “cbruce”, and “nickwalkermsu” — explained that while much of the DAO’s research efforts have gone into finding a suitable golf course purchase in the United States, “this listing was too special to ignore.”

“In our search for our first golf course to purchase, we have identified a promising property in Scotland called Spey Bay Golf Club. This vote is to determine if we should move forward with submitting an offer and working to purchase the course.”

The authors added that the course is “playable today,” and that its high ceiling to low price ratio makes it a worthy investment.

“Even a price of triple the ‘guide price’ would be cheaper than most mediocre courses we have assessed thus far in the US,” the authors explained.

As such, LinksDAO compressed the voting window to 48 hours in order to act swiftly on the potential purchase and hopefully get good price for the club:

“The timing of the sale requires us to act now should we decide to participate in the process. [...] We intend to execute this purchase while maintaining velocity on our efforts to acquire course(s) in the US.”

LinksDAO is expecting to pitch an offer in the vicinity of $900,000, which is said to be roughly its current market value, according to Golf Business News.

The 18-hole golf course is located in Fochabers, about 3.5 hours away from Scotland's capital city of Edinburgh.

The DAO explained the potential purchase would be financed with capital from its fundraise and that it would transfer funds from its treasury to a corporate bank account to support ongoing operations.

The authors of the proposal noted that this would occur within 30 days of the purchase.

#ForSale, Spey Bay #Golf Course, #Morayshire (including club house and caravan park). A fantastic opportunity to purchase an 18-hole links course (designed by the legendary Ben Sayers) located on the beautiful #Moray #coast. https://t.co/TavZpZ0hrZ
#Scotland pic.twitter.com/lXz6Xgml5v
— Strutt & Parker Scotland (@struttsscotland) January 26, 2023

LinksDAO officially established itself as a DAO in January 2022, which came on the back of a $10.5 million fundraising effort where more than 9,000 of its “leisure” and “global” membership NFTs were sold on OpenSea in a short 24 hour period.

There are now 5,302 owners of LinksDAO memberships, which are issued on the Ethereum network, according to nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea.

The average floor price of the memberships is 0.29 Ether (ETH), or about $480 at current prices.

While it is not known how much is in the LinksDAO treasury, the LinksDAO market cap is currently $4.34 million, according to CoinGecko.

Welcome to LinksDAO, @StephenCurry30 - See you on the 1st tee! ⛳️
— Links (@LinksDAO) January 10, 2022

NBA superstar Stephen Curry is a notable figure to have invested in a LinksDAO membership. However it is not known whether he is still a token holder.