LA-based Mythical Games, the games publisher and blockchain gaming platform, has raised $37 million in the first part of its Series C funding round. With a valuation now surpassing $1 billion, the company plans to pursue new initiatives for revenue generation and launch a new marketplace.

Round and round

Led by Scytale Digital, this round has also seen participation from new investors Animoca Brands, ARK Invest, MoonPay, Proof VC and Stanford Athletics, in addition to prior investors Andreessen Horowitz, WestCap, Gaingels, Signum Growth and Struck Capital. Mythical is expecting to raise a further $20-$30 million across the coming months, as the round is not yet closed.

"Our focus is optimising our business to get to profitability by year’s end, and the funds will primarily be used in our efforts to achieve that," Mythical Games co-founder and CEO John Linden told Cointelegraph.

With veterans from Activision Blizzard on board, Mythical Games raised $16 million back in 2018 during its Series A round, at the time planning to be blockchain agnostic.

More recently, the company has been working on a new game titled Nitro National World Tour, expected to release in the coming months. NFT presales began in February, with the game itself slated to be Mythical’s third in its portfolio. More undisclosed games are supposedly in development already.

Mythical Games’ latest release NFL Rivals was made in collaboration with the NFL. The American football title takes an arcade approach together with blockchain elements and player trading; some of the funds from the latest round are to be used in developing an in-game marketplace for this title.

As a hybrid Web3 game, NFL Rivals had already neared the 1 million install milestone in its first six weeks despite this being the NFL’s off-season. Mythical expects to see another surge when the new season kicks off.