Fractal takes the NFT platform to Polygon and raises funding

Polygon Labs said Fractal will extend its Web3 gaming platform to the Polygon blockchain protocol.

Fractal’s product suite, F Studio, will be available on Polygon, including the non-fungible token (NFT) launch pad, marketplace, tournaments, developer SDK, game launcher, and Login with Fractal service. The functionality with Polygon is live and available in three games, with more to come in the coming months.

Polygon will also make a strategic investment in Fractal, deepening the partnership and allowing the team to better serve Web3 game developers and players.

Founded in 2021 by Justin Kan, co-founder of the popular streaming service Twitch, Fractal helps game developers with tools to solve their most pressing blockchain and infrastructure needs. F Studio is a suite of developer tools to integrate Web3 technology into projects quickly and easily, with features such as a player-friendly wallet and account management system, APIs for the in-game marketplace, fiat on-ramp and NFT minting on demand.

“We’re really excited about this,” Kan said in an interview with GamesBeat. “We want to be where all the games are – the most anticipated game developers wherever they want to be.”

Can say the company is targeting triple-A blockchain plays.

F Studio also helps game studios grow their player base via tournaments and NFT releases. Fractal will eventually work with 30 of Polygon’s top games, including Aether Games, Champions Ascension, Phantom Galaxies, Life Beyond, Sunflower Land, Blast Royale, and League of Kingdoms.

Fractal and Polygon will also launch a campaign of tournaments and game-centric activations leading up to the Game Developers Conference at the end of March. With this collaboration, these titles will have exposure to a larger player base, helping to expand and integrate the entire Web3 gaming community.

Fractal approached Polygon for features such as speed and scalability, the security of the Ethereum network, and its ability to accelerate the development and availability of games. To date, over 200 unique titles have launched on Polygon.

About a year ago, Fractal decided to make sure their platform could run on any blockchain by creating a new layer of abstraction.

“People also launch a lot of games on Polygon, and some of the biggest games are there. So we decided we wanted to bring our products there and support them,” he said.

The company has a tournament product as well as a way to launch games on desktop computers. It operates an NFT marketplace, a wallet and a game login system.

“All of these have been brought to Polygon now,” he said.

Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of the Polygon Foundation, said: “Fractal has emerged as a crucial hub for the discovery of blockchain games. By joining forces with Fractal and combining their impressive suite of developer tools with our own, we aim to make 2023 the the year we bring Web3 games to the mass market.”

These titles saw a 54% increase in total unique addresses on the network by 2022. Bringing Fractal’s tools into the fold will ensure that Web3 game developers can continue to invest their resources in building top quality games.

Fractal co-founder Robin Chan also said in a statement, “From user acquisition to blockchain tools to financial infrastructure, we are putting the framework in place so that [game developers] can focus on successful game development. Partnering with Polygon’s own efforts to provide a high-performance environment to the community will bring this future forward even faster.”

When the company started, the Solana blockchain made a lot of inroads into gaming. But lately, Polygon has had great successes, he said. So the company did the work of moving to the new blockchain.

In October, Fractal added support for the Ethereum blockchain. Can say that the company can now transition to new blockchains without much technical effort.

Can say that the company has around 18 people and that it has deliberately kept itself small, even though it has raised a lot of funding.

“Just look at what’s happened in the market,” Kan said. “A year ago fundraising was easy. We raised a lot, but I thought we shouldn’t use it because you never know how long it will last. It was similar when we started Twitch. I believe in small teams.”

Kan did not disclose milestone numbers for Fractal, and he did not say how much money the company raised from Polygon. He noted that many companies should now expect that they will not be able to command the same valuations as they did before the downturn. It will have a pervasive effect on valuations.

Polygon said it has processed 2.36 billion transactions and has more than 211 million unique addresses, tens of thousands of decentralized apps and more than 1.12 million smart contracts created. The existing Polygon network is home to some of the biggest Web3 projects, such as Aave, Uniswap, and OpenSea, and well-known companies, including Robinhood, Stripe, and Adobe. Polygon Labs is carbon neutral with the goal of leading Web3 in becoming carbon negative.