Playdex, an online play-and-earn rental marketplace that allows gamers and guilds to rent gaming assets from NFT owners, has raised US$2M in seed round funding in an industry expected to soar to US$50B by 2025.
With Filipino users accounting for a staggering 40% of pioneering play-to-earn game Axie Infinity’s players, Playdex will use the fresh investment to accelerate product development, scale its community, and integrate more games into the platform.
Behind the company is a founding team composed of crypto and fintech veterans: Daniel Laborada, Xendit senior software engineer and P2E guild founder; Ron Hose, founder and former CEO of Coins.ph (the biggest tech exit in the Philippines); Thea Santos, Coins.ph Head of Operations and Marketing; and Eduard Iskandarov, Engineering Lead. Additional co-founders include Bernadette Misa, a Yield Guild Games manager and P2E guild founder; Luis Sia, co-founder of PayMongo with Wesley Dela Cruz of the PayMongo Growth team. Colin Goltra, Yield Guild Games COO and former Binance Director for Southeast Asia, has recently taken on an active advisory role to Playdex.
The US$2M seed round has attracted investments from PDAX, OrangeDAO, and iSeed Ventures. Other angel investors include Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen, Magic co-founder Aaron Kemmer, CSVE Ventures Managing Partner Nina Teng, Yaw Yeo of XA Network, Lazada PH Chairman Ray Alimurung, and Buko Ventures.
“On Playdex, gamers can play-and-earn immediately without having to buy expensive NFTs. Guilds (organized player groups) can now focus on training and scaling their communities no longer burdened by the hefty financial costs of gaming assets. While NFT owners can simply earn from their assets passively,” according to Ron Hose, Playdex co-founder and Coins.PH founder as he highlights Playdex’s ability to connect all stakeholders of the play-to-earn (P2E) world in one single platform.
Playdex enters a nascent industry rapidly gaining ground. Leading blockchain game developer Animoca has raised funds at a US$5B valuation, while Epic Games, creator of gaming’s cultural phenomenon Fortnite with 250 million players, has raised US$2B on ambitions to create the metaverse.
In addition, with 80% of the Philippines’ 110 million-strong population below 25 years old, and over 1 million daily active users playing blockchain games, the country has become the greatest use case proving blockchain gaming’s ability to bring millions into crypto at a staggering speed and scale.