Animoca Brands acquires Pixowl for $4.9 million
Mobile publisher adds multiple world-building and licensed titles to portfolio, including The Sandbox and Peanuts: Snoopy's Town Tale
Animoca Brands announced today it has acquired mobile development studio Pixowl for $4.875 million in cash and shares.
The deal and brings Pixowl's various mobile titles into the publisher's portfolio, including licensed titles such as Peanuts: Snoopy's Town Tale, Garfield: Survival of the Fattest, and Goosebumps HorrorTown.
That portfolio also includes The Sandbox, an aptly-named "sandbox" type game that allows users to create their own worlds using resources and the game's physics laws. It has been download over 40 million times.
Pixowl is currently working on a blockchain release of The Sandbox, which is planned to launch in 2019.
"Our acquisition of Pixowl provides powerful strategic and operational synergies with Animoca Brands," said Animoca co-founder and director Yat Siu. "Pixowl's experienced developers will significantly increase our development capabilities. Its founders are highly respected game industry veterans who have developed multimillion dollar franchises. We believe the blockchain version of The Sandbox has incredible potential.
"Pixowl shares our vision of blockchain gaming, NFT's, and games as a platform. Like us, it has a number of world-renowned brand licenses, including Snoopy and Goosebumps. We look forward to utilizing the many opportunities for growth conferred by this acquisition."
Earlier this year, Animoca also acquired Finnish mobile developer Tribeflame.