Aves Lair Fund invests in Immutable to stake a claim in the metaverse's super traffic gateway
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Aves Lair Fund invests in Immutable to stake a claim in the metaverse's super traffic gateway
Aves Lair, a U.S.-based emerging venture capital fund focused on investing in blockchain infrastructure and foundational technologies, led a multimillion-dollar strategic investment in Immutable's Series B equity financing.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
Author: Aves Lair
The summer heat in the Northern Hemisphere has faded, and the chill of winter is quietly setting in. Yet, investment enthusiasm in the crypto market shows no signs of cooling down. This fervor is not only reflected in the rapid rebound of prices for mainstream cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin on the secondary markets over the past month but also evident in the primary market, where crypto funds are increasingly active in identifying and investing in high-quality startup projects.
Aves Lair, a U.S.-based emerging venture capital fund focused on blockchain infrastructure and foundational technologies, has led a multimillion-dollar strategic investment in Immutable’s Series B equity financing round. This investment was not accidental. Although the Aves Lair accelerator fund may still be relatively unknown to many retail investors, it boasts impressive credentials: headquartered in Manhattan, New York, its management team comprises seasoned traditional VC investors, early Bitcoin advocates, and professors from prestigious American universities. Guided by a strategy that combines investment incubation with technological research and development, Aves Lair focuses on early-stage tech startups in blockchain and artificial intelligence, aiming to build a robust and resource-rich value investment ecosystem. Despite its short history, the fund has already achieved notable success, having invested in and incubated multiple high-potential projects such as Swarm and Flare Network.
Like some traditional VC funds, Aves Lair has gradually shifted its focus from conventional technology sectors to blockchain. However, unlike most crypto investment firms that adopt a "spray and pray" approach, Aves Lair inherits the traditional VC model of identifying revolutionary technologies before they become mainstream—seeking out transformative innovations ahead of the crowd rather than jumping onto already moving bandwagons. The fund places particular emphasis on foundational blockchain technologies and infrastructure development.
Immutable is one of the standout projects in which Aves Lair has made a significant investment. During preliminary discussions, Aves Lair engaged in multiple in-depth conversations with James Ferguson, Co-Founder and President of Immutable, along with other core team members, covering key topics such as the team's insights into traditional versus blockchain gaming, Ethereum network congestion, and Layer 2 scaling solutions.
Marian, Partner at Aves Lair Accelerator Fund, stated: “Real-world applications of blockchain must offer practical solutions to real problems rather than remain confined to theoretical experiments. No matter which technical platform is used, its utility must be proven through rigorous market testing to ensure long-term viability—and clearly, Immutable has achieved this.”
Marian further added: “Immutable aims to build a true virtual world. For decades since the rise of the gaming industry, players have had only limited rights over in-game items—with no ownership or control, and little transparency. Immutable is changing that. By creating games using immutable assets, players gain full ownership and the ability to publicly program these assets. Anyone can build tools or services around them and promote their free exchange within an open real economy, making the virtual world more authentic.”
Aves Lair: The future of blockchain gaming will no longer be “self-entertainment”
Axie Infinity’s explosive growth in 2021 set a new trend for the NFT market, boosting confidence in blockchain games closely tied to NFTs and the broader, more imaginative metaverse industry.
Marian said: “We hope blockchain gaming can completely move beyond the early stage of ‘self-entertainment’ among initial adopters and step into the spotlight—revealing its potential as a gateway for large-scale blockchain application adoption and expanding the horizons for NFT innovation. As a non-negligible entry point for widespread blockchain application adoption, the gaming industry itself carries inherent ‘disruptiveness.’ Its iteration cycle is much faster than other industries, and the ‘virtual worlds’ it builds serve as a preview of what our digitally transformed future might look like under the sweeping tide of digitization.”
Amid the growing momentum in blockchain gaming, Immutable stands out as a crypto game publisher that builds on gaming but doesn’t stop there. Under its economic model, we see gaming assets truly unlocking their “tokenized” properties within the blockchain world—feeding back into the gaming industry while continuously injecting vitality into the broader crypto space. Moreover, the functional shortcomings of NFTs are being effectively addressed in blockchain games, giving NFT attributes greater room to evolve. These advantages confirm that Immutable is firmly aligned with major industry trends.
More ambitiously, Immutable envisions building a genuine virtual world. On one hand, its decentralized community anchored in gaming products has begun achieving scale and revenue-generating effects—transforming blockchain gaming from an exclusive “self-entertainment” activity into a competitive arena with numerous capable participants. On the other hand, the infrastructure laid out by Immutable around an open “gaming ecosystem community” makes sustained and thorough preparations for the large-scale development of NFT-based blockchain games and the creation of a Web 3.0 new economy under the metaverse concept.
Immutable: An actionable solution
The most obvious distinction between blockchain games and traditional games lies in their “decentralized” nature. In blockchain games, players are no longer passively receiving content—they actively participate. This means transferring control and ownership of both the game and its surrounding ecosystem back to all players, participants, and communities, rather than relying solely on a single development team behind the product.
Failing to recognize this point means failing to grasp the transformative significance of blockchain and blockchain gaming for traditional internet and online gaming. At its core, blockchain technology redefines production processes and relationships. In NFT-based blockchain games, blockchain empowers users—this control includes both digital asset ownership and participation rights. To make this vision a reality, Immutable offers a highly practical and actionable solution.
As the first Layer 2 solution on Ethereum specifically designed for NFT trading, Immutable leverages StarkWare’s zk-rollup technology, introducing batch zero-knowledge proofs (Zero-Knowledge Proofs). It enables gas-free transactions—including minting, trading, earning, and collecting—as well as instant NFT trades. These two features directly address Ethereum’s pain points, removing barriers to user adoption for NFT projects and significantly enhancing NFT tradability and usability, thereby boosting demand and achieving scalability.
At the same time, Immutable introduces self-custody for NFTs, linking user assets directly to the Ethereum mainchain and inheriting Ethereum’s security guarantees—ensuring users maintain full control over their NFTs. This also promotes wider mainstream adoption of NFTs and serves as a critical safeguard for true “decentralization.” Additionally, Immutable provides an open programming platform for developers, allowing any participant to build their own tools, functions, or services—an essential step in establishing a decentralized ecosystem.
Beyond blockchain gaming and NFT activities, the long-term driving force for continuous innovation in any ecosystem or system always comes from participants—not just initiators. This requires stimulating participant interest and needs, providing accessible tools, and maintaining a secure and trustworthy environment. Immutable delivers precisely such a solution—one that balances usability, security, and transparency.
The rationale behind betting on Immutable: A professional and powerful team
In recent years, especially since Q4 2020, numerous startup teams across the industry have explored diverse approaches to blockchain gaming and Layer 2 scalability, objectively contributing to alleviating network congestion issues in blockchain games and on the Ethereum network. However, in practice, only a handful of these projects have gained widespread recognition. For example, when discussing blockchain games, Axie Infinity—the pioneer of Play-to-Earn (P2E) mechanics—comes immediately to mind; when talking about Layer 2 scaling solutions, Immutable stands out as a focal point for industry professionals. So why has Immutable achieved such remarkable results? What makes it worthy of Aves Lair Accelerator Fund’s endorsement?
Looking deeper, the answer lies in Immutable’s professional and highly capable team. Earlier, we mentioned Immutable X—the first NFT Layer 2 solution on Ethereum. What many don’t know is that the core team behind Immutable X originated from the renowned blockchain game company Gods Unchained. During the bear market of 2019, they set a record by generating 400 ETH in revenue within five days and created over four million NFT game cards during the public beta phase. Recently, Gods Unchained was also listed on OKEx’s Jumpstart platform, further demonstrating the project’s quality. As Gods Unchained grew and user numbers increased, the team became acutely aware of the real-world challenges of Ethereum’s transaction congestion and high fees, prompting them to begin planning a dedicated Layer 2 scaling solution tailored for blockchain games (NFTs).
Robbie Ferguson, Co-Founder and President of Immutable, graduated from the University of Sydney with dual degrees in Computer Science and Law. With five years of extensive experience in the blockchain industry, his strong technical background gives him deep and unique insights into current Layer 2 scaling solutions.
Early entry into blockchain gaming, years of industry深耕, and comprehensive expertise in technology, marketing, and more have naturally enabled Immutable to stand out among the many Layer 2 startups tackling Ethereum congestion. In 2018, its seed round raised $2.4 million, led by Nirvana Capital and Continue Capital, with participation from Coinbase and Sora Ventures. Then in 2019, its Series A round secured $12 million, led by Naspers Ventures (under Naspers) and Galaxy Digital EOS VC Fund, with additional investments from Reinventure and U.S.-based Apex Capital. Most recently, the project received another multimillion-dollar strategic investment from Aves Lair Accelerator Fund.
Immutable’s underestimated potential: An unlimited gateway for blockchain gaming and the metaverse
Take Axie Infinity—the currently hottest blockchain gaming project—even it faced challenges due to Ethereum’s network congestion and high transaction fees. Its solution was to create the Ronin sidechain. Since Ronin’s launch, it has significantly eased congestion for Axie Infinity, successfully supporting a massive gaming platform with over one million daily active users and an average daily trading volume exceeding $33 million. In comparison, Immutable X’s Layer 2 scaling solution surpasses Ronin in processing efficiency. Immutable X achieves a TPS (transactions per second) of over 9,000, meaning it can handle hundreds of millions of user transactions per day while consuming less than 30% of Ethereum’s capacity.
On September 23, Uri Kolodny, Co-Founder and CEO of StarkWare—a leading zero-knowledge proof technology developer—tweeted that Immutable had processed over eight million transactions on StarkEx. Additionally, the popular NFT project ECOMI announced at the end of September that it would begin migrating its digital collectibles platform VeVe to Immutable X in the coming weeks. The facts have already shown that Immutable X has earned market validation thanks to its speed, ease of use, and near-zero gas fees. But clearly, this is only the beginning. As more and more NFT projects migrate to Immutable X, its role as a crucial piece of infrastructure for NFTs and blockchain gaming 2.0—and ultimately as a super traffic gateway for the metaverse—will become increasingly prominent.
Marian added: “Drawing a parallel with the traditional internet industry, the current stage of blockchain development is akin to the late 1990s era of the internet. Anyone familiar with internet history understands the immense importance of becoming a foundational pillar of an industry, capturing traffic entry points, and securing user attention. Based on this logic, we believe Immutable’s future potential is limitless—this insight was a key factor motivating Aves Lair Accelerator Fund’s decision to invest in Immutable.”
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