Axie’s Sky Mavis announces a $150M funding round led by Binance

The funds will be used to refund Axie Infinity users who lost their assets after a hacker exploited Sky Mavis’ Ronin validator nodes and Axie DAO in March.

Sky Mavis, the developer firm behind the Axie Infinity game, has announced a $150 million funding round led by leading crypto exchange Binance.

The funding round also attracted other major investors from across the crypto space, including venture capitals a16z and Dialectic, crypto-focused investment firm Paradigm, and game software firm Animoca Brands.

According to Sky Mavis, the funds will be combined with those on the company’s balance sheet and be put into the reimbursement plan for Axie Infinity players affected by the recent $625 million hack.

Following the attack, the company has undertaken to bolster network security, including via internal audits. Reimbursing players was also one of the first commitments the developer pledged.

“Sky Mavis is committed to reimbursing all of our users’ lost funds and implementing rigorous internal security measures to prevent future attacks,” the firm’s CEO Trung Nguyen said.

He also touched on Sky Mavis’ plans.

“As a team, we have made an intentional decision to focus on what lies ahead, starting with tomorrow’s launch of Axie Infinity: Origin. We are also thrilled to collaborate with Binance NFT on future projects.”

The company hopes to reopen the Ronin Network bridge, which the hacker exploited to steal 173,600 Ethereum (ETH) and $25.5 million in USDC, once the security audits are over.

As a way toward making the network even more robust going forward, Ronin’s validator group will increase from five to 21. The process will be complete in the next three months and with validators set to be split between the firm’s partners and community members.

Despite the historic hack, the Axie Infinity game remains the most popular and most-played NFT game. More than 2.6 million people own Axie NFTs, while monthly active users currently stand around 2.2 million.