Participated · Seed · Nov 2022

Carv is a US-based decentralized identity authentication service provider focused on gamers. Its core product aggregates player data from both Web2 and Web3 into a single unified user ID. The company offers white-label data services to game operators, enabling operators to query new users' cross-platform data. Carv announced on X that it completed a new strategic funding round. Japanese Web3 game company double jump.tokyo Inc participated in the round; the amount and valuation were not disclosed. The article includes no operating metrics or additional financial details. Carv provides a modular data layer and toolset that enables users to control, authenticate and monetize their data for web3 gaming and AI use cases. Its core offerings include CARV Protocol (a cross-chain data layer and web2-to-web3 identity bridge), CARV Play (a cross-platform credentialing and game distribution system) and CARA, a personalized AI gaming assistant integrated with web3 wallets. The company promotes user-owned data and revenue-sharing, and has created a unified user ID standard (ERC-7231) to enable data portability. Carv has been profitable since December 2023 and reports more than $1 million in monthly recurring revenue, with significant month-over-month growth. It has 2.5 million registered users and over 350 integrated gaming and AI company partners. With new funding, Carv plans to scale its CARV Portal design and launch CARV Link for on-chain identity/authentication and CARV Database to manage varied user data types. CARV builds an intent-centric, composable SSI oracle and incentivized data-sharing protocol alongside an AI-powered gaming superapp called CARV Play. The protocol launched in Q3 2023 and combines confidential computation, decentralized incentive layers, an ID NFT (ERC7231) standard and an account-abstraction wallet to lower adoption barriers. CARV positions users to capture value via passive income from historical data and active income from brand interactions, and it enables brands to access first- and zero-party data using TEE and zero-knowledge proofs. The company reports more than 1.2M users and 600+ gaming studios interacting with the protocol through its application layer. CARV is expanding the protocol into a decentralized, general-purpose, multi-application ecosystem and is accelerating growth of its gaming application globally. The company held an ID NFT minting event and early onboarding in December 2023 to onboard initial users and partners. Carv provides an engine that aggregates gamer data from web2 and web3 and ties that information to unique user IDs, with a white-label data service for game operators to query cross-platform user data such as reputation and achievements. The DID is compatible with more than 20 Layer 1 networks, including Ethereum and Solana, which the company says will allow it to cover roughly 95% of blockchain games. Six months after launching its beta, Carv has partnered with over 90 games and exceeded 300,000 registered users, about 160,000 of whom are active monthly and spend an average of nine minutes per session. Carv is already generating revenue from its white-label data service and by taking a cut of NFT sales launched by games on its platform. The company plans to expand beyond games into other user scenarios over time and to enable customized user experiences such as tipping, which it would fee as a microtransaction. Its focus on lowering onboarding friction for web2 users aims to make DID more user-friendly than wallet-based flows like MetaMask.

Participated · Equity · Jul 2022

YGG Japan operates GabeeTown, a web3 game-specific platform that curates domestic and foreign blockchain games to help even beginners start playing. The company positions itself to move Japanese users from “Play to Earn” toward a broader “Play and Earn” market and to support Japanese game publishers in global launches. YGG Japan is building onboarding tools, media functions (GabeeTown is in alpha), wallets and other infrastructure to lower entry barriers and reduce scam risk for web3 novices. Its future plans emphasize product development, marketing/promotion, and recruitment of specialists (engineers, token economists, product marketers, BizDev, PR) to scale operations and communities. Financially, the platform has raised a cumulative total of approximately $5.75 million, including a recent private placement of about $2.95 million. ForN Inc., established in November 2021 and headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, is the operating partner of YGG Japan and provides marketing, tool development, and infrastructure support. YGG Japan is a subDAO of Yield Guild Games formed to promote blockchain gaming across Japan and to curate and create localized content for Japanese players. It partners with ForN, a DAO-structured game guild service optimized for Japanese gaming culture, and has an exclusive partner relationship with ForN. The subDAO plans to scale the blockchain game market in Japan by developing guild participation services, strengthening partnerships with existing guilds, offering scholarship programs for locally developed games, and providing smoother onboarding to Web3. YGG Japan will also provide development and marketing support for blockchain games using Japanese IP and work with local companies to build a pipeline of games to global users. The team includes Japan-based gaming and tech leaders such as CEO Tetsuya Fujiwara and other industry veterans. The company cites Japan’s market of 52.7 million gamers and a US$22.1 billion gaming market as the opportunity it aims to convert to blockchain gaming, and it recently secured funding to build entry-point products for mass gamers.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2022

Footium has built an online football-management title where players act as club owners and managers, competing in real-time leagues featuring promotion, relegation, dynamic transfer markets and monthly seasons. The game emphasises social play, letting users face real opponents rather than AI and rewarding top-performing clubs with cash prizes funded by in-game spending. After three years of development and more than a dozen community playtests, the studio reported a sold-out sale of 3,000 Footium Clubs in 2021 and tens of thousands of competitive matches completed during testing. Over 3,000 clubs have already taken part in month-long beta seasons, validating demand for a head-to-head football-management experience. The company’s roadmap includes creator tools, enhanced player trading and features that foster long-term rivalries. Financially, Footium has attracted backing from both traditional gaming investors and high-profile sports figures, positioning it to scale its live-service model. The latest funding accompanies the game’s hard release, marking the transition from soft-launch testing to full commercial rollout.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2022

rct AI is a New York-based developer of Delysium, an AAA web3 game. The game lets players own and manipulate physical in-game assets — including MetaBeings, virtual creatures, cyberbody, weapons, vehicles and environmental objects — that can be equipped, combined and upgraded via self-crafting or trading. Players can also create narrative assets such as dialogue models, behavioral models, decision-making models, storylines, missions and other personalized entertainment scenarios composed of AI-powered MetaBeings. Led by CEO Yuheng Chan, the company raised $4M in its first funding round to support game production and the broader ecosystem. rct AI plans to use the funds to launch Alpha and Beta versions of Delysium and to run a PVP tournament in the middle of the year. rct AI develops AI-powered content and virtual beings for the video game industry, including the Deterrence AI layer that powers intelligent NFTs and the Morpheus AI engine for NPC response and storyline generation. The company says it built the world’s first AAA play-to-earn game and the world’s first intelligent NFT chip to enable life‑like virtual beings and creators’ tooling. Its products include Deterrence (AI conversation, intent recognition, and motion generation) and Mirror NFT, a boutique gamefi collection that has seen millions of token transactions. rct AI emphasizes NFT utility and liquidity, AI-to-earn yield farming, and higher revenue potential for NFT owners as core business expansion areas. The company reports partnerships with 20+ game studios and serving 200M+ users worldwide. rct AI completed a $10M+ Series A-3 round, underscoring recent fundraising progress as it pursues broader Metaverse and gamefi adoption.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2022

Delysium is an AI-powered open-world platform that builds diverse, free-to-own universes and AI-driven MetaBeings for player-created experiences. The company has released a Playable Whitepaper game that garnered over 450,000 views in two weeks, showing early traction. Its technology stack includes AI-to-earn, AI conversation models, AI intent recognition, and AI motion generation powered by Deterrence and rct AI to create cognitively aware virtual beings. Delysium has delivered a visually focused Battle Royale title and is focused on scaling content production across its Multiverse. The team plans to use funding to develop content, enable unique AI-powered experiences, and build the Delysium Multiverse—an open-source, decentralized publishing structure for web3 games. The company emphasizes involving Multiverse Operators to set on-chain incentives and co-produce abundant game content. Delysium is described as the world's first playable AAA MMO web3 game, combining open-world MMORPG design with cyberpunk aesthetics and user-generated content. Its gameplay includes battle, exploration, construction, cultivation, social systems and AI-driven "MetaBeing" characters. Players can earn loot boxes (tokens, NFTs, game resources) through various modes and can equip, combine, upgrade, craft and trade in-game assets such as MetaBeings, cyberbodies, weapons, vehicles and environmental objects. The platform also enables creation of narrative assets, including dialogue models, behavioral models, decision-making models, storylines and missions. The team plans to launch Alpha and Beta versions with a PvP tournament in the middle of the year and will use recent funding to support game production and the ecosystem. Delysium is led by rct AI, an entity incubated by Y Combinator, with Yuheng Chan as CEO.