Blockchain gaming company Irreverent Labs has received $40 million in a recently closed funding round, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Friday.
Led by Esports veteran Rahul Sood, the crypto gaming studio has already received investments from Andreessen Horowitz and the Chainsmokers venture fund. In its first title, the play-to-earn game "MechaFightClub," owners of non-fungible tokens (NFT) battle robotic chickens for fame and profit.
"It's basically a fighting game set in the future where every character in the game is an artificially intelligent non-player character that lives on the blockchain as an NFT," Sood said on the March 16 episode of the Around the Coin podcast.
The weighty funding round comes at a time when MechaFightClub is preparing to publicly release its alien robot chickens.
According to the roadmap on the game's website, the "Genesis" drop event will give out 6,969 "pre-fertilized, highly-potent EGGs" to eager owners who will train them for the "COCKTAGON" - a "professional arena where our characters fight in professional battles," according to a trademark application filed with the U.S. government.
The project's "breeding" mechanic mirrors that of the popular play-to-earn title Axie Infinity, where new NFTs can be created from the eggs of old ones. In the story of MechaFightClub, the eggs come from an alien species from a not-too-distant future. They can level up as they win, earning crypto rewards that players can spend on their birds or take out of the game.
"Our goal is to build an emotional connection between characters and their birds, kind of like a Tamagotchi on crack," Sood said during the podcast.
According to SEC documents, 11 investors participated in the $40,000,044 sale, a mix of stock and options. Irreverent Labs had previously received $5 million in its November funding round.
An avid gamer and founder of gaming platform Unikrn, Sood said on the podcast that despite hardcore gamers' "allergic" reaction to NFTs, there is an explosive opportunity for crypto crossovers.
"But at the same time, there are a lot of new Web 3 players that are getting into the space and really seeing the future of where things could go," he said. "For us, that's a big reason why we're building on blockchain."
Sood did not immediately respond to a request for comment.