IndiGG, Yield Guild Games’ (YGG) India sub-decentralised autonomous organisation (subDAO), has received $6 million in funds to support the play-to-earn movement in India. Sequoia Capital India, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Jump Capital, Variant Fund, Dune Ventures, Griffin Gaming Partners, Transcend Fund, Animoca Brands, Play Ventures, Backed and Sfermion, IVC, Emfarsis, and others were among those that participated in the round.
Before onboarding new games for the Indian market, IndiGG will support NFT assets for Axie Infinity, Pegaxy, Fancy Birds, Nyan Heroes, and Nitro League. Polygon Studios’ thriving Web3 game ecosystem — which includes Zed Run, Skyweaver by Horizon Games, Decentraland, and Decentral Games — will ensure that IndiGG scholars have constant access to the most recent releases. “India is poised to take the lead in forging this new web3 frontier. We have the skill, capital, and confidence to keep us in the driver’s seat, and games are the ideal platform for engaging our next generation of talent,” said Hemant Mohapatra, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.
IndiGG will use the funds, which include a $1 million pre-seed lead by YGG, to focus on six critical areas to accelerate platform growth and onboard Indian players to the web3 world of play-to-earn. In addition to driving local Play-to-Earn education, expanding the team, and organising community events, NFTs — blockchain-based digital assets required by players to play these games – are commonly used in play-to-earn games.
“The play-to-earn guild model was first proven by YGG in the Philippines, our partnership with Polygon Studios will bring this life-changing model to one of the gaming communities in one of world’s largest emerging economies so they can reap the benefits of web3,” Gabby Dizon, co-founder of Yield Guild Games, stated.
“Through the Polygon ecosystem we’ve already seen traction in player-owned virtual economies and we know the quality of games in development. Our goal in partnering with YGG for IndiGG is to onboard 400m people to Web3 on the path to mass adoption,” Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder, Polygon, added.
“Polygon and YGG coming together to address the gaming market in India is a big step for the Indian gaming ecosystem. Ownership of in-game assets will fundamentally alter the game economies and design dynamics. We want to leverage the power of this paradigm to ensure that the Indian gamers are a big part of the Web3 gaming revolution,” Siddhartha Jain, advisor, IndiGG, explained.