Web3 infrastructure company NPC Labs has raised $21 million USD in funding to accelerate gaming development on Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base.
Led by Pantera Capital, which contributed $18 million USD in the round, other contributors included Makers Fund, Mirana Ventures, Hashed, and several other investors.
This funding will allow NPC Labs to further increase the support they provide to web3 game developers in taking their titles to market – particularly facilitating the launch of games on Base.
What is NPC Labs?
NPC Labs is a GameFi infrastructure startup – founded by three former Coinbase employees – which aims to assist developers in finding an audience and launching their titles. They offer support throughout the launch process, purportedly going above and beyond what traditional game publishers offer.
“After spending years creating a game, developers are beholden to publishers to deem their games worthy of support, marketing, and distribution,” said Daryl Xu, CEO of NPC Labs. “And when they do, developers give up 70% of the proceeds with the risk of the publisher pulling the game if it’s not generating sufficient revenue.”
NPC Labs takes a different, more developer-friendly approach, that returns control “back to the game developers and gamers,” explained Xu.
To enable this, NPC Labs will be a core contributor to B3, a Layer-3 GameFi blockchain on Base which will handle gas fees, transactions and the bridging of in-game assets – enabling developers to focus on building great games.
What is Base?
Powered by Optimism’s OP Stack, Base is a low-cost, developer-friendly Ethereum Layer-2 network, incubated centralised crypto exchange Coinbase.
Base aspires to utilise blockchain to create an open, global economy that promotes creativity and innovation. It is utilised and supported by a wide array of popular names in web3, including Animoca Brands, TCG Parallel, and crypto analytics firm Nansen.
The Base blockchain has plans to continue to decentralize over the coming years, with the ultimate goal of creating an open ecosystem for Coinbase products, users and assets.
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