Sky Mavis, the creator behind the popular Play-to-Earn game Axie Infinity, has raised $150 million in a funding round led by crypto exchange Binance. The funds raised will be used to restore funds lost in the Ronin bridge exploit.
The Vietnam-based startup has accumulated over $150 million from Binance as the lead investor, with Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm, and Accel participating in the round. Combining the investment with Sky Mavis’ own balance sheet funds, the company is aiming to reimburse all users affected by the heist.
“With the support of Binance and other industry leaders, we will be able to quickly expand the validator set from five to 21 validators to ensure the security of the Ronin network,” Trung Nguyen, CEO of Sky Mavis, said in a statement.
Ronin network, an Ethereum sidechain that manages data of Axie Infinity, recently suffered one of the largest cryptocurrency heists in history that resulted in some users losing more than $600 million in Ether and USDC. The hacker attacked the Ronin validator nodes, taking control of five of nine nodes required to make transactions.
Soon after discovering the exploit, Sky Mavis paused the Ronin Bridge to prevent any further onslaught on the chain. Per the announcement, the company will reopen the bridge after passing through a security upgrade and several audits, which may take several weeks. However, users are able to withdraw and deposit Ethers using Binance for now.
