Growth Fund Case Study: Mythical

What Alumni Ventures Liked About Mythical

• Unique engagement concept and scalability: Mythical is creating universal economies driven by player ownership to change and enhance the future of gaming. Its platform for in-game economies and secondary markets for digital goods can be licensed by other games, producing both revenue and profit sharing.
• Large addressable market: In the nearly $200 billion video game market, Mythical is building a Web 3.0 gaming platform around NFTs, decentralized finance, blockchain, and player-owned economies. Gamers already spend major money ($50 billion-$100 billion Total Addressable Market) on virtual game merchandise such as characters, environments, gear, etc.
• Strong partners: Twitch, Kakao, Microsoft, PayPal, and eBay are partnering with Mythical Games to roll out their first game, Blankos. Blankos is collaborating with pop-culture brands including Warner Brothers, Vans, NBA, NFL, Formula 1, Burberry, Nike, Beats, and more. The company has signed as content partners influencers and celebrities (such as Deadmau5, Ninja, Dr. Dre).
• Experienced team: Mythical’s team of veteran game and platform developers have track records for bringing innovative game concepts to market and an understanding of where gaming is going. They led three gaming studios, were responsible for blockbuster games, and have successfully started and sold gaming companies, and have generated $8 billion+ in game sales.

Rounds and Co-Investors

In 2019, Alumni Ventures participated in Mythical Games’ Series A-2 led by Javelin Venture Partners. Well-established participating investors included Struck Capital, Digital Galaxy, Avon Ventures, and Hashed.

In 2021, AV participated in Mythical’s $150 million Series C in an oversubscribed round, bringing the company valuation to $1.25 billion.

• Most of the Series C round is fresh money, with lead firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) putting in $50 million. A16z is a prolific VC investor with deep expertise in blockchain, including $3.1 billion crypto funds. It has participated in nearly 40% of all VC deals by value for NFT companies — and “has consistently gone after the biggest names in NFTs” (PitchBook).
• The Series C funding includes participation from D1 Capital, RedBird Capital, and The Raine Group, as well as crypto exchanges Binance and FTX. The company also received support from notable entertainment brands and personalities, including 32 Equity, the investment arm of the National Football League.*

*Co-investors and investments listed are for illustration purposes only. These co-investors are some that AV has historically co-invested with and is not a predictor of future co-investors for any given portfolio company. There is no guarantee of who will be the co-investors. These investments are not intended to suggest any level of investment returns; not necessarily indicative of investments invested by any one fund or investor. Many returns in investments result in the loss of capital invested. These investments are not available to future fund investors except potentially in certain follow-on investment options.