Farworld Labs raised $1.75 million to roll out its decentralized Farcade platform for developers to build Web3 games.
The funds will help the company with its upcoming third-quarter releases, including the launch of the Farcade platform in conjunction with top-tier studios and developers.
Built on decentralized social media protocols, the Farcade is a platform and suite of tools for developers to build crypto-native games that integrate with onchain social media.
Lemniscap and Variant co-led the round, with participation from Base Ecosystem Fund and Coinbase Ventures.
Farworld said the decision by Meta and other legacy Web2 social media platforms years ago to restrict third-party developers from creating games and applications within their apps has stifled gaming development and hindered its integration with social media. Still, when available, those social networks allowed gaming juggernauts like Zynga to emerge.
The Farcade is re-introducing those concepts onchain — think Steam meets Zynga. Farworld Labs is re-imagining onchain gaming. Built on Farcaster, the Farcade is a platform and suite of tools for developers to build crypto-native games that integrate with onchain social.
Acknowledging this “innovation chasm,” Farworld Labs said it is enabling gamers to play games directly where they already are, enjoying an embedded gaming experience, allowing them to play Farcade games in the Farcade app or within their social feeds on Farcaster.
The team got started in March and it has three employees.
“We I have a lot of conviction in decentralized social media. We’re life long gamers and saw a really unique opportunity in the sector that Farcaster frames enables — similar to the early days of Zynga when FarmVille was launched on Facebook,” said the founders, Charlie Blackstock and Bobby Blackstock, in a statement.
The Farcade uses Farcaster accounts and smart wallets, making it effortless to play and create onchain games. The Farcade will be mobile-optimized and playable on any device without, even with limited hardware, and won’t need to be downloaded from the Google Play or Apple’s App Store.
Farworld Labs is also gearing up for the launch of Season 1 of Farworld – an onchain monster training game. Interested parties can participate by signing up to the waitlist on Farcade.xyz.
Within the first three months after unveiling the Farworld proof of concept, Farworld Labs launched the game’s MVP, sold out eight consecutive drops, generated over $500,000 in revenue, and expanded the community to tens of thousands of gamers.
The game can be played entirely on Warpcast, a flagship application in the Farcaster ecosystem, which mirrors the user interface of traditional social networking sites like Twitter. The Farworld game mechanics leverage Farcaster’s social graphs for native marketing and social gameplay.
Farcaster enables users to take control of their data and own their social connections, driving a significant upgrade to conventional social media platforms. Farcaster’s design allows different social apps to work together smoothly, much like how email systems interact across the internet. Warpcast – the first application built on Farcaster – is a relatively small platform compared to traditional social media companies, but has experienced rapid, exponential growth, eclipsing that of Web2 platforms by an order of magnitude.
Charlie Blackstock, CTO of Farworld Labs, said in a statement, “The current Web3 gaming landscape is blighted by walled gardens, requiring users to connect their wallets, pay gas fees and link their social media accounts before they even have a chance to engage. At Farworld Labs, we are driven to make games instantly playable within social media feeds with just a single click, enabling seamless social interactions and simplified onchain experiences. Sincere thanks to our investors for helping us turn this vision into reality.”
Roderik van der Graaf, managing partner at Lemniscap, said in a statement, “At Lemniscap, we take great pride in identifying emerging verticals well before they gain mainstream traction. Farworld Labs is at the vanguard of innovation at the intersection of decentralized social media and Web3 gaming – verticals that Lemiscap has a rich and storied history with. We’re delighted to co-lead this pre-seed round and support the Farworld Labs mission to empower gamers and developers to build onchain.”
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