Animoca Tightens The Reigns in Japan With $45M Web 3-Focused Funding

Animoca Brands’ Japanese subsidiary, also known as – Animoca Brands KK – has raised $45 million. Its parent company, Animoca Brands Corporation Limited, and MUFG Bank, Ltd. (MUFG) led the investment.

The blockchain gaming powerhouse is strengthening its presence in one of the leading economies in Asia – Japan. According to the official blog post, the freshly raised capital will be deployed to secure licenses for well-known intellectual properties and build internal capabilities.

Promoting Web 3 adoption to multiple partners and ramping up the value and utility of their branded content while simultaneously boosting the NFT ecosystem in Japan are also some of the prime areas of focus.

Animoca Brands’ Japan Connection

It was first reported in March that the Japanese unit of the metaverse company has been considering a partnership with the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFG), which happens to be one of Japan’s oldest and largest banks. The main focus of the collaboration is to develop digital content, intellectual property rights acquisition, and NFT market management.

MUFG had earlier stated:

“in order to revitalize the NFT market in Japan, it is necessary to develop an NFT environment where anyone can easily trade with peace of mind, just like daily purchasing activities. Further development of the NFT market is expected by realizing customer protection against fraud, impersonation, and loss of content value due to speculative transactions in the NFT environment.”

Japanese Crypto Ecosystem

The development comes as the Japanese government looks to reevaluate the crypto tax rules applicable for corporations in the 2023 financial year. The two crypto lobbying groups of the island country – Japan Crypto-Asset Business Association and the Japan Crypto-Asset Exchange Association (JVCEA), have requested the leaders to lower the tax rates for individual investors on crypto earnings.

Currently, it imposes a 30% corporate tax on profit from crypto holdings, including unrealized gains. Advocacy groups fear that this move will eventually result in brain drain.

Despite the regulatory chaos, the NFT market has soared. In fact, The local tech companies in Japan have started to warm up to the idea of non-fungible tokens and Web 3. MUFG, for one, was one of the first big Japanese banks to foray into the NFT space. SBI Group, on the other hand, has already established a dedicated subsidiary called – SBINFTs.