Tatsumeeko raised $7.5 million in seed funding to fund its cross-platform fantasy online game with blockchain technology.
The Singapore-based company is making a massively multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) lite game. And it is using non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which can authenticate unique digital items, to enable a new business model for the game.
DeFiance Capital, Delphi Ventures and Bitkraft Ventures co-led the round. Other investors include Binance Labs, Animoca Brands, Dialectic, GuildFi, and more.
The game is being developed by the team who launched the initial game concept, Tatsu.GG, the market leader in Discord community gamification and engagement that captured 60 million users and 1.4 million Discord communities. It’s a variation on the chatbot.
The funds will allow Tatsumeeko to continue development on the MMORPG-lite experience to be released on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains.
Many NFT and gaming companies are relying on Discord, an online community platform with over 140 Million monthly users, to engage with their user base. Those community participants help the games spread in a viral way, which is necessary since most app stores don’t have blockchain games.
In 2015, Tatsumeeko’s team saw the potential to create a cross-platform gaming ecosystem, Tatsu.gg, which is now set to evolve and breathe new life into Discord and other online social platforms.
It has a unique gaming ecosystem that the company believes could help Web3 gaming reach mass adoption while simultaneously fostering strong communities in popular chat applications.
“The ever-increasing importance of placing community first, along with the proliferation of Web3 communities relying on Discord as their platform of choice, has surfaced issues within user retention, acquisition and interaction,” said David Lim, CEO and creative director of Tatsumeeko, in a statement. “Our team leverages diverse experiences building triple-A mobile RPG titles to solve these problems by building a social MMORPG with sustainable tokenomics directly into Discord. At the same time, we want to add value to Web2 and Web3 games, brands and NFT projects who can integrate Tatsumeeko through their Discord and engage their communities with fun gameplay.”.
The team is developing its game with support from gaming VCs and partners. Built with a mobile user in mind, Tatsumeeko is a Discord-playable role-playing game.
Tatsumeeko will be an MMORPG that will utilize Web3 and their Meekolony NFTs — however, the game will still be playable without the integration of Web3. That means gamers will be able to play the game with or without incorporating the Web3/NFT elements.
The team is looking forward to creating a game that will allow gamers to completely avoid this aspect, if they so choose, but players who already consider themselves Web3 native will be able to integrate the tech off the bat. The team expects this to be a valuable way to eventually onboard new Web3 users down the line.
It will be available on iOS, Android, and the web. Players will battle monsters, explore the world of Lelia, build their communities, and get introduced to crypto and NFTs in a seamless way.
The company ran tests that reached 60,000 monthly active uses and saw trading of 4.5 million items.
“Delphi Ventures is proud to announce our seed investment into Tatsumeeko. Their client-agnostic, Discord-first approach also presents a unique opportunity for both web2 and web3 players to have a touchpoint with Tatsumeeko wherever they may be. Most of all, their passion for building and evangelizing their community won us over,” said Ryan Foo of Delphi Ventures, in a statement. “We’re excited to witness how Tatsumeeko matures over time, and support them in realizing their full vision of a play-and-earn fantasy MMORPG-lite that exists on Discord and mobile.”
Tatsumeeko is now ready to tap into new markets with features such as main and side story quests, co-op raids, dimensional invasions, PvE (player versus environment) combat and PvP combat with in-game token rewards.
In the future, the game will expand to other social platforms like QQ, WeChat, and Telegram as well as target multiple communities on Ethereum and Solana. It plans to use in-house infrastructure to reach a lot more users.
In early July, Tatsumeeko will begin the initial sale of Aethereal Parcels, special pieces of land that will provide utility and special attributes to the collectors who hold them or other players who interact with them.
In November 2021, Tatsumeeko released Meekolony Pass, a series of 10,000 genesis NFTs on Solana, that give holders benefits, rewards, and airdrops for items in Tatsumeeko. Meekolony Pass holders will be able to customize their adventurer avatars in unique ways that traditional players cannot.
The Tatsumeeko team consists of veterans from triple-A entertainment companies such as Square Enix, Koei Tecmo, Tencent, Gumi, and Toei Animation. They have collectively shipped titles including Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, Dissidia Final Fantasy, Brave Frontier, WAKFU, Attack on Titan, Sword of the Stars, and more.
The team has six core leaders and about 46 people, mostly in Singapore.