For example, Thailand-based Web3 gaming ecosystem Zentry raised from investors including Animoca Brands (the most active investor in gaming in the last 2 years), Binance Labs, and Coinbase Ventures.
It then acquired Maxion to expand into blockchain gaming by putting game IP on the blockchain — highlighted below in its CB Insights scouting report.
2. AI democratizes game development
Even Netflix, which hasn’t made a startup investment since 2020, got in on the game development scene with an investment in Series Entertainment.
The startup’s game development platform Rho Engine uses genAI to automatically generate assets like textures and characters.
The fragmented gaming landscape is presenting ripe opportunities for acquirers — both within gaming and outside it — to make land grabs.
M&A activity more than doubled in 2024.
Gaming companies led the way in cross-platform expansion (see Nintendo and Shiver Entertainment), while acquirers like fintech firms (see Uniswap and Crypto: The Game) are using gaming acquisitions to boost digital engagement.
Fake it ‘til you indict it: The trial against Charlie Javice, founder of fintech startup Frank, kicked off Friday. Prosecutors argued she faked millions of users to convince JPMorgan to buy her company for $175M. The bank claims it uncovered the alleged fraud when 70% of marketing emails bounced.
Biting the bullet: Elon Musk reignited his feud with ex-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal while enforcing a new DOGE policy requiring federal employees to submit 5 bullet points justifying their jobs — or risk termination. Musk mocked Agrawal on X, claiming he “got nothing done."
Source: X
Sakana’s shortcut: Nvidia-backed Sakana AI claimed its system could speed up AI model training by 100x, but users on X found it actually caused a 3x slowdown. OpenAI’s Lucas Beyer traced the issue to a bug that let the AI “cheat” benchmarks. Sakana admitted the flaw, promised fixes, and said it would update its research paper and results to reflect the mistake.
Cold case: Bybit suffered a record $1.5B crypto heist after hackers breached its cold wallet— an offline system meant for secure storage. To reassure users, Bybit says withdrawals remain normal and has secured a bridge loan to cover losses while investigators track the stolen funds. Analysts have traced the attack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
The domino effect: The SEC isdropping its lawsuit against Coinbase, handing a big win to both the exchange and the crypto industry. Filed under President Biden, the case accused Coinbase of running an unregistered securities exchange. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called it a “domino effect” moment as President Trump pushes to make the US a crypto powerhouse.
Altman, enter stage left:A new off-Broadway play,Doomers, turns Sam Altman’s 2023 OpenAI firing into satire, complete with power struggles, tech bro absurdities, and existential AI debates. Billed as “Glengarry Glen Ross for the AI age,” the play reimagines the drama with fictionalized characters. I’ll likely go see this along with the 18 other people in NYC who find this stuff entertaining.
