Solana Ventures, Forte, and Griffin Gaming will invest $150M in blockchain games

Solana Ventures, Forte, and Griffin Gaming Partners announced they will invest $150 million in blockchain games.

The aim is to invest in Web 3 game makers who are creating decentralized games on the Solana blockchain. Such games often use nonfungible tokens (NFTs) that use the transparency and security of the digital ledger of blockchain to authenticate unique digital items.

NFTs have taken off in the past year and crypto-focused game companies have seen big successes with NFT games such as Axie Infinity. Now the established game developers are taking notice and moving into the NFT games market for new ways of monetizing digital items.

Solana Ventures is the strategic investment arm of Solana Labs, the creator of the Solana blockchain ecosystem that is popular with games. Griffin Gaming partners has one of the largest funds for invest in games, and Forte provides the infrastructure and regulatory compliance for game companies that want to move into blockchain games quickly. Forte recently raised $725 million in its own funding.

“The ecosystem is still defining what the intersection of blockchain and gaming looks like,” said Matthew Beck, partner at Solana Ventures, in a statement. “And I’m delighted to partner with Forte and Griffin Gaming Partners to help support this new generation of game designers and builders.”

In blockchain-enabled games, players can truly own goods, rather than making pure entertainment expenditures, since their digital items can be authenticated. Players around the world can freely trade goods and services with each other and can participate in community economies that reward creativity, collaboration, and skill. These new systems provide game players and communities all around the world with new creative and economic opportunities.

“Gaming and interactive media would not be a cornerstone of blockchain today if it weren’t for the many technical developments the community has accomplished in the past decade — Solana is a premier example, having helped pave the way with scalability and UX fit to match these demanding experiences,” said Pierre Planche, partner at Griffin Gaming Partners, in a statement.

(Pierre happens to be a pretty good Warzone player.)

Forte’s platform allows game publishers to easily integrate these blockchain technologies into their games, with products for seamless, embeddable token wallets, NFT minting and selling, payment rails, and other services built specifically for blockchain token economies and the management of digital and virtual assets.

“Blockchain is enabling publishers to engage with their player bases in innovative ways,” said Forte CEO Josh Williams, in a statement. “Where game developers once had to continuously create new content for players to consume as one-time purchases, with the advent of NFTs and other blockchain technologies, game developers can now offer their audiences real property rights and create self-sustaining and thriving economies within their games.”

Above: Griffin Gaming Partners, Solana Ventures, and Forte have teamed up on blockchain games.

Image Credit: Griffin Gaming Partners

He added, “Solana further pulls the future of blockchain gaming forward, as its ultra-fast and low-cost solutions ensure scalability, even at tens of thousands of transactions per second, making building games on Forte with Solana feasible and cost-effective for both developers and players. We are also honored to partner with Griffin Gaming Partners, which has an exemplary reputation in working with publishers to build the most forward-looking titles in the games industry.”

Griffin has invested over $400 million into gaming and Web 3 gaming-related companies over the past two years, including its lead investment in Forte’s best-in-class platform for blockchain gaming and balanced digital economies. Griffin is backed by over a dozen of the world’s premier gaming, media, and technology companies across Europe, the U.S., Asia, and the Middle East.

“Griffin is excited to continue to partner closely with Forte and Solana to help move the blockchain gaming ecosystem forward with a focus on the right technology, quality game-play, and long-term value,” said Nick Tuosto, cofounder of Griffin Gaming Partners, in a statement.

Solana is the world’s most performant blockchain, supporting 65,000 transactions per second, 400 millisecond block finality, and average transaction costs of $0.00025. The network is also extremely energy efficient, with transactions using less energy than two Google searches.

This is the second blockchain gaming-focused investment initiative Solana Ventures has announced, following a $100 million fund in collaboration with FTX and Lightspeed.