FTX, Lightspeed, Solana Ventures to Invest $100M in Web 3 Gaming

FTX, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Solana Ventures are investing $100 million in Web 3 gaming development, the companies announced Friday.

The funding will support gaming studios and technology that integrate the Solana blockchain into video games on desktop and mobile platforms.

The initiative has already resulted in its first investment with FTX and Lightspeed leading a $21 million funding round for gaming studio Faraway.

Lightspeed said it’s already invested $300 million in “early stage gaming and crypto companies” that include Epic Games, 1047 Games, Tripledot Studios, Offchain Labs, Alchemy and Wintermute..

Web 3 gaming has skyrocketed in popularity with play-to-earn titles such as Axie Infinity and metaverse games like Decentraland and Sandbox.

While part of the investment will target the development of new titles, it will also be used to integrate Solana’s blockchain into existing games, creating in-game economies centered around NFTs and Solana wallet payments.

“Gaming has a massive opportunity to bring the next billion users to Web 3,” Amy Wu, partner at Lightspeed, said in a press release. “High-performance blockchains like Solana are now capable of delivering the kind of Web 2 experiences gamers expect while providing the advantages of decentralized Web 3 systems.”