Farmville co-creator-led company raises $33M to create Web3 games

Proof of Play, a company led by Farmville co-creator Amitt Mahajan, raised $33 million to create Web3 games, according to a Sept. 21 announcement. Majahan is the CEO of Proof of Play, and Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear is a board member.

The funding was co-led by Chris Dixon at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Neil Mehta at Greenoaks. Investors Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan and the founders of streaming platform Twitch also participated, as well as Web3 firms Anchorage Digital, Mercury, Firebase, Zynga and Alchemy.

Proof of Play released a closed beta of its first game, Pirate Nation, in December 2022.

In its announcement, the company claimed it can overcome many roadblocks players commonly encounter when attempting to play Web3 games. It stated that it possesses “a set of technological and product innovations” that will “quickly immerse players in fun gameplay” without learning about blockchain first.

Related: Atari founder sees Web3 games as vital for virtual ownership and education

Proof of Play also stated that it is committed to decentralization. Pirate Nation is a “Forever Game” that can be run without external servers or creator intervention, adding that the company intends to open-source its technology framework in the future to decentralize further.

The Proof of Play team includes members from several large gaming and web companies, including Epic Games, Zynga, EA, Activision and Google.

Multimillion-dollar funding rounds from Web3 companies have become the norm in 2023. EVE Online developer CCP Games raised $40 million in March to develop a new spinoff EVE game, and Hyperplay raised $12 million in June to further develop its distribution platform and Steam competitor.