Magic Eden Starts Gaming Venture Arm

The new venture arm comes weeks after Magic Eden raised $130 million in a Series B round that valued the young startup as a crypto unicorn. The company then revealed that part of the funds would be used to ramp up its efforts in the NFT gaming market.

Magic Eden has named Tony Zhao, a former Chinese gaming giant Tencent employee, as its new head of gaming investments.

Zhao told reporters that Magic Ventures would pursue purely strategic investments in nature. Furthermore, the new unit will prioritize supporting developers of NFT-based video games instead of approaching investments to make returns.

Zhao told Decrypt that they’re not thinking about returns. Never have and never will. It’s just to align our partnership together. They genuinely want to be the go-to partners for these developers.

Developers in Charge

According to announcements, when Magic Ventures onboards a new developer, the developer will have access to an ecosystem. It offers both a launchpad for direct sales of new NFTs and a secondary marketplace for ongoing sales.

Developers can focus on one thing they know how to do: build great games. They’ll help them to take care of all the Web3 elements and to help them onboard into the ecosystem.

Although Zhao failed to disclose full details, he revealed that Magic Ventures had already invested in some startups, with more on the way.

Meanwhile, Magic Eden’s gaming division announced that it had collaborated with several Solana games, including Aurory, Genopets, and Mini Royale: Nations, to facilitate in-game NFT marketplaces. Once launched, players can trade NFTs within the games without exiting an external marketplace.