Final Fantasy Maker Square Enix Backs Bitcoin Gaming Startup Zebedee in $35M Round

While a lot of crypto gaming activity takes place in Ethereum and Solana ecosystems, Zebedee has consistently beat the drum for Bitcoin over the last couple of years. Now the gaming startup has raised new funding with a surprising gaming giant in the mix: Square Enix, the publisher of Final Fantasy.

Zebedee today announced a $35 million Series B funding round led by Kingsway Capital, which includes participation from Square Enix and The Raine Group, plus existing Zebedee investors Initial Capital and Lakestar.

Zebedee’s platform enables game developers embed micropayments via Lightning network, which is built on Bitcoin. Game studios may offer small amounts of Bitcoin as rewards for playing games, for example, and the firm provides an application programming interface (API) for developers to implement the technology and an app for gamers to access their Bitcoin rewards.

Early 2021, Zebedee demonstrated the technology by launching dedicated servers for Valve’s popular online shooter, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), which allow players to bet and win Bitcoin rewards to compete in online matches. According to the company, the average size of a transaction on the platform is only $0.08 worth of Bitcoin via the Lightning Network.

Zebedee earlier raised a Series A round of $11.5 million in September 2021, and the company said it has so far raised about $50 million in total. The firm claimed in a press release that its user base has grown tenfold since the Series A round.

Decrypt asked for more detailed statistics on the company’s growth, but a Zebedee representative said the company does not provide user numbers. As for any notable new apps on the platform, the rep pointed to Fumb Games’ Bitcoin Miner and Vestly and said many of their apps “have seen a lot of sustained engagement.”

Square Enix is ​​a major video game publisher, and the company behind not only Final Fantasy, but also Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, and other popular game IPs. Until recently, it was also the company behind Tomb Raider and Deus Ex, but that sold these franchises and others— plus three of the game studios — for $300 million to help finance the blockchain industry’s endeavors.

Together with Ubisoft, Square Enix is ​​one of the most vocal traditional video game publishers in support of how blockchain technology could impact gaming. Square Enix was first released NFT collectibles in 2021 in Japan based on the Million Arthur franchise, and will also bring the Dungeon Siege IP to The sandboxan Ethereum metaverse game like that previously supported in 2020.

Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda has too written positively about the potential for NFTs and the coming metaverse, a blockchain-supported 3D evolution of the internet. “By designing viable token economies into our games, we will enable self-sustaining game growth,” Matsuda wrote in January.

Square Enix’s moves in the blockchain space have drawn ire from longtime fans and traditional gamers, some of whom have vocally pushed back against NFTs citing the environmental impact of some platforms, plus fraud and other concerns. However, the Japanese gaming icon seems to be only getting deeper into the space, as evidenced by the Zebedee news.

Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication to include comments from Zebedee.

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