NPC Labs Raises $18M to Scale Gaming on Base Network

As an analyst with a background in gaming and blockchain technology, I find NPC Labs’ announcement of their $18 million funding round led by Pantera Capital to be an exciting development in the Web3 gaming space. The co-founder of NPC Labs, Daryl Xu, shares my belief that while there are many innovative projects being built in crypto, they often cater primarily to the crypto-native audience.

A game development company, NPC Labs, which intends to establish a GameFi platform utilizing the Base protocol, has successfully raised $18 million in a funding round headed by Pantera Capital.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Daryl Xu, one of the founders at NPC Labs, shared that their goal is to amplify gaming on the Base platform by serving as a key player in B3.fun, the Base gaming community, and developing GameFi solutions that cater to users new to crypto.

Currently, many individuals in the cryptocurrency sector are developing impressive applications. However, these apps are mainly catering to the crypto-savvy community. Terms like wallets and liquidity pools (LPs) abound in their conversations. But for the average person, who we aim to bring into the fold as the next potential millions or billions of users, such technical jargon holds little interest. Instead, they are looking for an enjoyable and uncomplicated experience.

Xu revealed that NPC Labs intends to employ the raised funds to ignite the ecosystem and expand accessibility for non-Web3 users in crypto gaming. A portion of these efforts includes establishing new entry points like Basement.fun, a discovery platform designed to introduce users to these games.

“[Basement.fun] is designed as a platform for exploring games, similar to Miniclip or Addicting Games from the past. Our goal is to create a straightforward experience where users can easily access and begin playing games directly on our web application, without encountering numerous steps or obstacles.”

Based on the announcement, B3 is presently undergoing testing and is capable of hosting games constructed on Ethereum, Base, and other Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible networks.

In the same discussion, Collab+Currency, Sfermion, Mirana Ventures, Bitscale Capital, and Mantle EcoFund were also present as partakers.