Led by the largest DeFi fund Framework Ventures, this fundraiser allows llluvium to launch the first-of-its-kind, transparent and community-governed gaming experience.
March 12, 2021 — Illuvium, a decentralized gaming platform that harnesses the power of nonfungible tokens, recently announced a $5-million funding round, which was led by one of the most established venture capital funds in the decentralized finance space, Framework Ventures. The investment positions Illuvium to become the premier gaming platform in the crypto ecosystem ahead of its Balancer Smartpool Launchpad, which is scheduled to launch on March 30.
The project has also gained financial backing from IOSG Ventures, LD Capital, Delphi Digital, YBB Foundation Ltd, Stake Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, Lotus Capital, Blocksync Ventures, Bitscale Capital, Quantstamp, Yield Guild Games, Bitcoin.com, as well as crypto founders Kain Warwick of Synthetix, Stani Kulechov of Aave, Anton Bukov of 1Inch, and Santiago Roel Santos of ParaFi.
Founded last year by Kieran and Aaron Warwick, Illuvium melds the highest-quality gaming interface with an interactive experience that rewards players with the opportunity to explore and capture NFTs, known as Illuvials, within battle gameplay. As a self-sustainable game that uniquely aims to incentivize its players with a true stake in the project, the Illuvium network allows for the fees incurred within the game to be paid out to staked token holders as ongoing rewards.
“We’re thrilled to fuse the incredible possibilities of crypto with gaming worldwide to transform the industry into an even more entertaining experience that features the added value of monetizing good play with rewards,” said Kieran Warwick. “Our endgame is cross-chain interoperability among other games. It’s not about winning our own battle but rather coming together as one to expand the ecosystem of decentralized, transparent and community-governed gaming.”
In a decentralized ecosystem, Illuvium players will be able to immerse themselves in an explorable world that features high-quality NFT collectible creatures, or Illuvials, which will debut with the first-ever four-dimensional-shading holographic NFT design. During gameplay, Illuvials can be captured to gain power for reaching higher levels in the game or to earn crypto income by selling them on an exchange for Ether (ETH). Moreover, Illuvium is planning to create a world that can support a variety of titles in multiple genres, with the option to open the world to other developers.
The innovation spearheaded by Illuvium will unleash not only immense creativity in the gaming space but also value in such a way that crypto assets will gain widespread use and will soon reach mainstream adoption.
“The Illuvium team has set out to educate and move traditional gamers into the world of decentralized and community-run gaming,” said Michael Anderson, co-founder of Framework Ventures. “The impeccable design and gameplay of Illuvium is only one puzzle piece of this project. More broadly for the crypto industry and beyond, Illuvium’s foundation is based on DeFi staking mechanisms and tokenomics that provide a gateway for players into truly open and permissionless financial systems.”
Illuvium is a decentralized autonomous organization that allows the community to gain ownership of the project and, in turn, engender a financially self-sustainable gaming platform. Revenue is generated from in-game fees collected and purchases of Illuvials on the IlluviDEX exchange. DeFi staking mechanisms convert in-game profits from ETH to synthetic Illuvium ($sILV) and distribute the tokens fairly to staked ILV token holders. Integrated with a hyper-scalable layer-two solution and built on the Ethereum network, Illuvium offers players the unique opportunity to engage in gameplay with access to zero gas fees for minting or exchanging.
To learn more about Illuvium and its upcoming public launchpad, where investors and players alike can purchase ILV tokens with Ether, visit illuvium.medium.com. A further medium article will be released in the coming days detailing how to participate in the Balancer Launchpad on March 30. The game will be available at the end of Q3 2021 to Windows and Mac users and is built on Unreal Engine 4.
About Illuvium
Illuvium is a decentralized, NFT collection and auto battler game built on the Ethereum network. Integrated with the hyper-scalable immutable-X layer-two solution, players of Illuvium gain access to zero gas fees for minting or exchanging assets, as well as sub-second transaction times, all with user-maintained custody. Founding Illuvium DAO contributors, Kieran and Aaron Warwick are the younger brothers of Synthetix founder, Kain Warwick, and together, they offer a diverse set of skills in the gaming and crypto space. The genesis of the Illuvium project was a desire to make a collectible NFT game that was open, transparent and governed by the community.