TON Ventures, the venture fund established by the TON network, has recently announced a $40 million fund intended for investment in projects developed on TON.
A DAO will manage the fund and will be headed by Ian Wittkopp, former director of TON Accelerator, and Inal Kardan, former gaming lead at TON Foundation. One of the initial projects to receive funding from TON Ventures is Gamee, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands.
Gamee, one of the original companies that launched mobile games on Telegram in 2016, introduced its meme-based WAT Protocol earlier in 2024. The company has expanded its functionality to include Watbird Racer and the ability for token holders to soft-stake them to build up Wat points, which will be converted into the WAT token when it launches later this year.
With the new funding, Gamee plans to enhance its TON integration by introducing tokens and NFTs to its mini app to improve user engagement. So far, Gamee has connected over 4 million players to the TON wallets through the Watbird app.