Blockchain-based game studio Horizon secures $3.75M investment led by Reddit co-founder

Blockchain-based game studio Horizon Blockchain Games has secured $3.75 million in seed funding led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s Initialized Capital.

As per a press release, other investors include Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Digital Currency Group, and Inovia Capital.

The Toronto-based company aims to produce high-quality, Hearthstone style online trading card game across iOS, Android, Mac, Linux, and Windows, VentureBeat reported.

Horizon created Arcadeum, an Ethereum-based blockchain video game network that enables players to secure wallets to store their assets from blockchain games, including SkyWeaver. It also serves as an application browser, which allows game developers to release and market new games.

“At Horizon, we’re passionate about giving games blockchain super-powers by offering our players the freedom to own and trade digital items across an open Internet,” Peter Kieltyka, Horizon Co-Founder and CEO, said in its announcement.

The firm's online game SkyWeaver combines trading card game features and freedom of players to own cards. The HTML5 game is slated to be released in open beta this fall.

“We are proud to have invested because not only do they have a long term future vision with a desire to make a positive impact on society, they are a far-seeing video games company, making engaging experiences that will give players all the benefits of digital and physical worlds colliding,” Ohanian stated.

Last month, Ethereum-based decentralized video encoding platform Livepeer also raised $8 million in a Series A funding led by Northzone, in a bid to productize its technology and promote further adoption of scaled video apps and independent video developers.

Azarus, another blockchain-based service that runs on video game challenges, also raked in $1.8 million of investments to establish its EOS blockchain-powered “smart challenge” platform.