Azra Games raises $10 million in round led by A16z for Legions and Legends NFT game

Quick grab:

• Azra Games has announced a $10 million funding round led by A16z Crypto.
• The fundraising brings the total amount raised for the seed round to $25 million.
• The company is building an NFT game based on the Legions and Legends NFT collection.

Azra Games has completed an extended $10 million seed funding round led by A16z Crypto. The additional funding brings the total raised for the seed round to $25 million, Azra Games said on Tuesday.

The fundraiser also attracted participation from web3 VCs, including NFX, Coinbase Ventures, Play Ventures and leading global fund manager Franklin Templeton.

Azra Games was founded by CEO Mark Otero, a former general manager of global gaming giant Electronic Arts. Speaking to Fortune, Otero expressed optimism about web3 gaming, citing its relatively early stage compared to traditional games.

“Legions & Legends is an opportunity for us to create something with a potentially new business model for a new platform,” he said.

On the other hand, writing in a blog post about her company’s additional investment in Azra Games, Arianna Simpson of A16z Crypto said: “We believe that the unique business and ownership models provided by Web3 will revolutionize the way people play games.” online games”.

While traditional gamers continue to resist the temptation to be drawn to blockchain gaming, major game developers and publishers led by Ubisoft, Square Enix and Jam City have turned to web3 gaming.

While one of the widely adopted concepts for creating NFT games involves using non-expendable tokens as playable characters, Otera said Legions & Legends will take a different approach.

While the game will incorporate tokens as in-game collectibles, NFTs will not be the basis of the game, Fortuna reported. The game will initially be offered via PC and mobile devices. Last year, Azra Games released The Hopeful NFT Collection, which owners can use as a pass to get pre-launch access to concept art and beta testing, among other benefits.

Azra Games is positioned to become a gateway to the mass adoption of web3 games. “Ultimately, we see ourselves as the potential content that will attract the next million users in the Web3 space,” Otero told Fortune.

Praising Otero and other gaming veterans involved in building Azra Games, Simpson added: “Over the past nine months, we have seen Mark Otero and the team of gaming experts he has assembled perform in a world-class manner. The team, which worked together for years on role-playing games like Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes to bring the ultimate power of fantasy to millions of gamers, comes together again to create exciting role-playing experiences.