Aetius Capital leads US$30M ICO for Cloud Alliance to develop an app store for gamers in partnership with Unity Technologies
SINGAPORE, Feb. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Singapore-based private investment firm Aetius Capital is leading the region's first digital games platform token sale – a US$30M Initial Coin Offering ("ICO") for Cloud Alliance, a Singapore-based technology startup founded by seasoned video gaming entrepreneurs to develop platform solutions for the digital games industry.
The proceeds from the "MOO token" sale will be used to further develop an app store with global game development engine Unity Technologies ("Unity"). The "MOO Store" is an exclusive collaboration in Southeast Asia between Cloud Alliance and Unity where made-with- Unity games can be seamlessly published and accessed by more than 100 million gamers in Southeast Asia.
US-based Unity, which is backed by Sequoia Capital, DFJ and SilverLake Partners, owns the world's largest video game development engine used by more than 5.5 million developers worldwide. It is estimated that more than half of all new mobile games were made using the Unity platform, including blockbuster games such as Pokemon Go, Hearthstone, Super Mario Brothers, Assassin's Creed and Honour of Kings.
Founded in 2016, Cloud Alliance previously raised US$5m from Aetius Capital to develop an integrated payment platform called CloudMoolah for Unity.
CloudMoolah -- a payment solution that has been successfully integrated into the Unity Editor, is now offered alongside Amazon Apps, Apple's iOS App Store and Google Play Store in the Unity Editor. By simply choosing the CloudMoolah integration option in the Unity Editor, a Unity developer can immediately enable in-app revenue collection capability from more than 500,000 retail point-of-sales across Southeast Asia, thereby saving the developer time and hassle of integrating multiple offline payment channels in Southeast Asia. This effectively shortens the go-to-market time for developers who want to publish their games in Southeast Asia from a few months to less than 10 minutes.
The new cryptocurrency MOO Token aims to democratise online game distribution in Southeast Asia, where online gaming is estimated to reach US$9.6bn by the year 2025 (source: Temasek and Google 2017 report on e-commerce in Southeast Asia).
The strong growth potential is one of the key factors behind Aetius Capital's decision to invest in the company.
Mr Benjamin Cher, founder and CEO of Aetius Capital, said, "The Cloud Alliance team is creating a virtual asset marketplace where gamers can trade MOO Token with virtual items from games on the MOO Store -- a virtual asset marketplace integrated into the MOO Store. The marketplace will allow gamers to exchange their virtual items with other gamers outside a game. It will also enable the trading of game publishing services between gamers and developers."
Mr Cher added, "Global app store revenues now exceed US$100 billion and more than 70% of app store revenues come from mobile game app purchases and in-app spending. By partnering with Unity and focusing on fast-growing Southeast Asia, the MOO Store aims to make money from game app purchases and in-app spending by reaching more than 100 million gamers in Southeast Asia. Based on our projections, the MOO Store may generate revenues exceeding US$200 million by the year 2022."
Unity and Cloud Alliance will also further explore the use of blockchain technology in the MOO Store.
Mr Jonathon Sze, co-founder of Cloud Alliance, explained, "Blockchain technology enables transaction efficiency and immutability. By incorporating blockchain into virtual currency for gaming, we aim to eliminate chargebacks and reduce the risk of fraud. We also aspire to give more back to game developers. Incumbent app stores today typically charge developers 30%. The MOO Store aims to lower this fee significantly by exploring the use of blockchain technology, enabling developers to save on intermediary costs such as retail margins and currency conversion fees, which means developers will receive more of their share for their work."
The MOO token will be a utility token built on the Ethereum smart contract blockchain-based interface.
The MOO token pre-sale is on-going and will end on 23 February 2018. The public sale will be from 1 March to 31 March 2018. Interested investors can visit www.cloudmoolah.io for more information.
About MOO Token
The MOO Token is a new cryptocurrency which aims to support the development of MOO Store, an app store which will be jointly developed by Cloud Alliance and Unity Technologies.
ICO Website: www.cloudmoolah.io
Moo Token Sale Telegram Group: https://t.me/cloudmoolah
About Cloud Alliance
Cloud Alliance was founded by entrepreneurs with a collective experience of more than 30 years in the video game publishing and payments industries in Asia. Cloud Alliance's flagship product, CloudMoolah, is a payment aggregator integrated within the Unity Technologies' game development software and is offered alongside other in-app-purchase (IAP) products from technology giants such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Xiaomi and Samsung. CloudMoolah allows Unity developers to enable in-app revenue collection across Southeast Asia where the average credit card penetration rate is less than 3%.
About Aetius Capital
Aetius Capital is a Singapore-based private investment firm focused on partnering and backing highly driven entrepreneurs in various industries. It can invest directly in the securities of the company and/or the cryptocurrency issued by the company if the company can demonstrate compelling blockchain use for their cryptocurrency. Notable investments which have been publicly announced include Shopback, Toast and Cloud Alliance.
Media Contact:
Stratagem Consultants Pte Ltd
Tham Moon Yee
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Email: [email protected]
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