Singapore’s Mighty Jaxx closes Series A funding with new strategic investors including iDreamSky Technology

Mighty Jaxx, a Singapore-based future culture company that designs and produces phygital collectibles, announced Tuesday the final, undisclosed close of its oversubscribed Series A+ funding round.

The new tranche sees new strategic investors iDreamSky Technology Holdings Ltd along with another undisclosed, leading technology company with rich intellectual property (IP) resources coming onboard, fuelled by burgeoning interest in the phygital and metaverse future, Mighty Jaxx said in a statement.

As announced previously on March 7, 2022, this funding round was led by East Ventures (Growth Fund) and includes new strategic investor Mirana Ventures — the venture partner of Bybit and BitDAO, while Easternwind International, Pan Solar Ventures and Teja Ventures are the other new investors participating in the round.

Major investors from the previous rounds including KB Investment and Korea Investment Partners continue to participate and contribute towards the growth of Mighty Jaxx.

Mighty Jaxx has raised to date, in excess of $40 million in funding from a global network of investors that also includes the likes of New York-headquartered Greycroft, Singapore’s SGInnovate and China’s Finewill Capital.

“We have observed a qualitative leap in the growth of the Chinese collectible market over the past few years, led by the rise of Chinese collectible brands as well as new players. In this $100 billion market, phygital collectibles will emerge as a key focus point in the drive for digital convergence, and for the rise of the metaverse and the creator economy. We are very grateful for the trust and support from all of our investors, and this recognition further reinforces Mighty Jaxx’s vision and ambition to reshape the collecting experience with new technology. The rich experience of our investors will help us break new ground and create a richer and more enjoyable future culture,” said Jackson Aw, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mighty Jaxx.

With a total addressable market that Morgan Stanley values at around $8 trillion in China alone, the funding will allow Mighty Jaxx to further deepen the expertise of its proprietary platform for tech-enabled collectibles, strengthening its ability to develop immersive and interactive phygital collectibles and content.

With virtual reality, gaming and social media widely anticipated to be some of the earlier applications to be available on the metaverse, Mighty Jaxx will leverage on the support of both its new Chinese investors to focus on developing its extended reality and Web3 capabilities to bridge phygital collectibles with online, digital experiences.

Mighty Jaxx said its China-centric push into Web3 and the metaverse with its investors is opportune and critical, as the smartphone, mobile internet and Web2 business models continue maturing and the injection of new experiences could propel the market to newer heights.

With its new investor’s strengths in China-wide broad-based entertainment platforms and rich IP resources, Mighty Jaxx will also look to deepen its capabilities in IP development with a goal to create stories and phygital products that live from one generation to the next, turning them into a wide range of cultural and entertainment influences for the masses.

Furthermore, sharing a vision that phygital experiences will be centrepieces of the metaverse, Mighty Jaxx will tap on iDreamSky to channel their gaming IP and distribution of Mighty Jaxx’s collectibles via their global network, as well as drive digital development in the realm of digital collectibles and blockchain gaming.

In addition, Mighty Jaxx will also be able to tap on iDreamSky’s expertise in developing offline entertainment experiences and the strength of its WePlay retail network to further strengthen its offline/online offerings.

Mighty Jaxx said operating at the intersection of culture, entertainment, sports and tech has allowed the company to be creative and fluid in its approach to developing phygital collectibles, couple with the addition of China’s most popular IPs across different entertainment genres will serve as a transformative and powerful growth accelerator to further strengthen Mighty Jaxx’s position as a global future culture and entertainment company.

Riding this wave of momentum, Mighty Jaxx will work closely with both its new investors to bring their premium IPs to a global audience by enabling its phygital collectibles to step out of connected screens and digital devices into an open and inclusive ecosystem, where various Mighty Jaxx products and services will tell the stories, enrich, share, and participate in the daily lives of consumers worldwide.

“Dynamic IPs are the core drivers of the collectible industry and in China, this has traditionally been dominated by popular Western IPs tapping on the nostalgia of consumers. In recent years, China’s content and IP development capabilities in animation, film and gaming has grown from strength to strength and Mighty Jaxx is very well placed to bring quality local IPs to the global market and vice versa by continuing to deliver global IPs to Chinese consumers,” said Aw.

Pivotal to enhancing operational capabilities will be Mighty Jaxx’s plans to significantly increase the size of its global workforce, particularly in the areas of tech, creative and licensing over the next 18 months.

Operationally entrenched in Singapore and China and with both London and Los Angeles offices in its nascent stages, there will be a priority on adding key executive roles as Mighty Jaxx looks to keep scaling in the U.S. and Europe and deepen its business in China and Southeast Asia.

Founded in 2012, Mighty Jaxx is a future culture company that designs and manufactures tech-enabled collectibles and lifestyle products in partnership with the greatest talents in the world as well as global brands such as Formula 1, Hasbro, Toei Animation, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers, Adidas, Netflix and more, shipping millions of phygital collectibles to over 70 countries worldwide yearly.

With a mission to supercharge future culture phygitally, Mighty Jaxx is building an integrated platform to empower future pop culture brands with an end-to-end supply chain of collectibles, including artist development and incubation, proprietary IP operation and providing global consumers access to new retail experiences.

Singapore’s Mighty Jaxx nets $20M in Series A+ funding led by East Ventures