We just raised an additional 40M

We just raised an additional 40M

Today is a great day for Irreverent Labs and MechaFightClub fans. We’re excited to say we’ve closed our Series A, raising an additional $40m led by a16z. While this may seem like it’s happening incredibly fast because, well, it is. It feels like we’re on the verge of striking lightning.

Irreverent labs is a deep technology game studio building hilarious games and entertainment which leverage artificial intelligence, automated pipelines, incredible artwork and storytelling, and deep economies that are designed to be self-sustaining over 100 years.

The Founders Story

After Unikrn was acquired in 2021, my friend David Raskino, who had started Microsoft Ventures with me years prior, reached out for a coffee. It was a great time to reconnect after we had been working on separate careers for years.

He had returned to Microsoft after a few years of running his own startup and a venture fund. David had spent most of his career doing machine learning projects, and most recently he had built the ML team at the newly formed web-defense group at Microsoft.

That coffee was a game changer; we’ll both remember sitting at 3rd Culture drinking their ginger chai latte while discussing the future. We spent the next week meeting at the same place, same drink, discussing ideas. After one of his ideas, something super interesting around AI I shared my most ridiculous and favorite idea.

I was expecting a few laughs but nothing too serious as I told him about how my son and I (both avid gamers) were scripting this idea for a futuristic MechaCockFighting game. We were both laughing.

Ultimately we started to apply how he thinks about AI and machine learning into the concept... and we both fell in love with it.?

We brought in some of our key people who we both worked with from the past, including one of the greatest living artists I know, some designers, some more machine learning and computer science professionals, and we just started building. We ended up raising a quick seed round of $5m from the likes of a16z, Mantis (the Chainsmokers), Unlock VP, Keen Crypto, and Advancit, and in just about half a year we've made truly insane progress.

Introducing MechaFightClub

MFC is a ridiculous idea: biotic birds fight in a hilarious combat sport that is part MMA, part Tamagotchi, part Gundam Wing, part Mortal Kombat, with a garnish of humor from Family Guy, Monty Python and South Park. Every character in the game is an individually unique, artificially intelligent non-player-character (NPC) living on the blockchain as an NFT.?

Just like each character is unique, each fight is also unique and each game is increasingly absurd. The viewing experience is just as interesting as direct gameplay; MFC will provide Netflix meets Tiktok, highly shareable, clippable, exciting and hilarious moments, all generating more human interaction for mechabots to thrive on. Owners aren’t just trainers, they’re also promoters and managers for their mechabots, and mechabots will earn more by generating more human engagement.

MFC will become a modular game, with many different minigames to showcase the many traits of players’ AI companions (their mechabots). Some will showcase a mechabots’ strength, but other challenges may feature intelligence, endurance or other traits.

We’re building a creator economy which will allow all kinds of creators to help us deepen the synergy between visual art, gameplay and storytelling. We are creating a game that speaks to our fans and draws in the community, where our goal is to create a strong emotional bond between our players and their characters.?

We want the emotional connections between players and their mechabots to be beyond anything else in gaming, and this is just the beginning.?

We could not be doing this without our incredible product team. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made, and we’re almost ready to go live with the first chapter of our game: The Hatchening.?

Our Series A

Our original Seed Investors also participated in our Series A. That is, a16z, Mantis VC (The Chainsmokers), Unlock Venture Partners, Keen Crypto, and Advancit Capital. We're so happy to have them on board!

Our new investment was majority led by our series A lead: a16z. Their history includes over 100 extraordinary success stories including Facebook, Roblox, Coinbase and Slack. We see their unwavering support and confidence in our vision as a sure sign we’re moving in the right direction.

Of course, we’re grateful for that support and we know that with a16z behind us, we have a great resource for business development to help grow MechaFightClub faster, bringing our community more awesome experiences and exciting P2E options.

Here’s what Arianna Simpson has said about our project:

“For all its lighthearted fun, Irreverent Labs is a deep technology company building advanced tech on top of a futuristic mecha-cockfighting game. The software they’re building is unique, and combined with the web3 economy they plan to launch in the coming months, will allow all kinds of creators, from artists to musicians to engineers, to play a role in further developing the game and storyline. We couldn’t be more excited to double down and lead Irreverent Labs’s Series A.”

Meet Irreverent Labs’ New Investors!

Michael Ovitz (founder of CAA)

Michael is the founder of the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which has been one of the most influential groups in Hollywood for decades. You may not know him by name, but you know the CAA (at least indirectly). They represent Steven Spielberg, Zendaya and Tom Hanks, to name a few.

He has been an architect of the global entertainment sector since the mid 1970s; there are few living people who better understand the business and art of entertainment. Michael will help us unlock and navigate some of the media opportunities that are becoming available to us.

We’re grateful for the opportunity to have such a legend in our corner.

Sonam Kapoor

Speaking of legends, we’re also joined by Bollywood Superstar, Sonam Kapoor.

Sonam is one of the biggest film stars on Earth, reaching an audience of over a billion people with blockbusters like Sanju (at time of its release, the 8th most successful box-office release in Bollywood history) and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (at time of its release, the sixth-most successful release in Bollywood history). She also happens to be a gamer.

Her experience, audience and expertise help us bring MFC to India and the Indian diaspora, working to establish MFC as the premiere P2E experience in India, the UK and even parts of North America.

Along with Michael and the Chainsmokers, we are filled with confidence by Sonam’s enthusiasm for this project; it shows that our vision speaks to some of the greatest minds in entertainment and lifestyle branding.

Solana Ventures

Solana Ventures, the investment arm of Solana Labs, has joined Irreverent Labs’ investors.

The team at Solana Ventures is one of the best in blockchain, and they’ve been supporters of our project since very early, solidifying our decision to build our game on their blockchain ecosystem.

Now that Solana Ventures is officially invested into MechaFightClub, it’s clear that our game is already impressing some of the smartest and most influential minds in P2E gaming. With Solana Ventures’s support, we see expanded access to a deep well of knowledge around P2E gaming.

The reality is setting in for us; we’re receiving active support and financial investment from one of the world’s top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. It is humbling, and it is exhilarating. We can’t wait to show the world what this support will make possible!

Infinity Ventures Crypto

Solana Ventures and a16z aren’t the only blockchain experts who have backed Irreverent Labs in this round; they’re joined by Brian Lu's fund IVC. Brian’s career of insight and success in the blockchain space will provide us additional expertise to tap while building for the P2E audience and expanding our reach beyond the existing crypto audience.

He is a deep well of knowledge and insight about the blockchain space, and will help bring MechaFightClub into the hearts and minds of P2E fans throughout Southeast Asia!

Capitoria

Capitoria is also joining the round and brings with it vast knowledge of crypto and institutional finance.?

Last, but certainly not least, Solana Ventures is investing in us this round. All we can say is that they’re such an awesome group of people to work alongside, and they know a good game when they see one.

MechaFightClub is poised to become the biggest, most globally recognized fighting arena in the metaverse. If you’ve already joined the #mechaholics, thank you! If you’re just discovering us, it’s not too late to be early!

Both Geekwire and Venturebeat just released articles on this raise and Irreverent Labs, check them out!