Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based gaming company and investor behind web3 giants like The Sandbox, Sky Mavis, Dapper Labs and OpenSea, just got a talent boost.
Alan Lau, former CEO and chairman of Tencent’s in-house insurance agency WeSure, has joined Animoca as its chief commercial officer, Lau’s LinkedIn page programme.
Animoca started out as a mobile game developer in 2014 and in recent years has become one of the most active web3 investors in the world with a growing portfolio that includes more than 300 companies, both centralized and decentralized. As chief commercial officer, Liu will oversee Animoca’s portfolio companies, lead mergers and acquisitions, and focus on business development, his profile said.
Internet insurance and the web3 worlds seem to have little overlap, but Liu’s involvement with the arts – serving on the board of the Tate and Guggenheim’s Asia program – could serve Animoca well, as the art industry has been keen to embrace the meta Universe and NFTs. Liu’s experience at WeSure running a consumer internet platform with over 100 million registered users has also helped manage a large number of startups.
We have contacted Animoca Brands for comment.
Lau isn’t the only Tencent veteran switching to web3. HobneyPreviously signed an investment agreement for Tencent’s gaming division, and is now head of business development at Animoca.
Animoca Brands, which employs more than 700 people worldwide, jumped to more than $5 billion in valuation after announcing a $360 million funding round in January. According to it, as of April, its portfolio was worth more than $1.5 billion across 340 investments. financial reportwhich had $98 million in cash and $211 million worth of digital assets on its balance sheet at the time.
