In its Pre-Series A funding round, Lysto, which provides digital credentials to gamers, raised more than $12 million. The round’s investors include Square Peg, BEENEXT, Hashed, Tiger Global, and Better Capital.
In addition, angel investors such as Binny Bansal, Bobby Ong, and TM Lee from CoinGecko as well as Balaji Srinivasan (ex-CTO, Coinbase), Paul Veradittakit from Pantera Capital, and Binny Bansal participated. Lysto will use funds to enhance business development efforts, establish equipment for issuing digital credentials, and further develop its digital infrastructure.
“We are excited by the interplay of gaming and crypto, especially when combined with this team’s unique credentials and their passion to bring crypto to the masses. The team is early in the journey yet has built out great capabilities in the space,” said Tushar Roy, partner at Square Peg.
With the current fundraising included, Lysto has already raised $15 million in funding. Sadiq Ahamed founded Lysto in 2021, a company that creates NFTs, APIs, and digital software for online gamers. It mainly provides digital certifications to online players after they claim victory in a contest or tournament. These credentials are later used to create NFTs, which players can upload to their social media profiles.
“Through PoPP and Passport, Lysto is enabling the gaming ecosystem to standardize gamer reputation. We envision a world where on-chain attestations across games and tournaments can form the basic building block of gamers’ profiles,” said Sadiq Ahamed, founder, and CEO of Lysto.
According to Lysto, Proof of Play Protocol (PoPP) was recently introduced and it provides industry professionals with standardized gaming credentials. PoPPs are essentially awards, social badges, and tokens for game testers that are given out by online games and competitions. It can be distributed to players via AirDrops, APIs, and emails, and at a later time, players may post it on their public profile.
Lysto received $3 Mn in seed funding from BEENEXT, Better Capital, Cloud Capital, and other investors in November 2021. It states that since the last fundraising effort, its personnel have grown to 25 people. It competes with organizations like Alzheimer’s Research that grant professional gamers gaming credentials.
In India, there are now 390 million online gamers, an 8% increase from the previous year. A KPMG report predicts that the Indian gaming market will reach $3.9 billion by 2025.
