Irreverent Labs confirms $40M round funded by Andreessen Horowitz and others

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Irreverent Labs confirmed it has raised $40 million to further boost its efforts to create MechaFightClub, a robot cockfighting game that uses non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Created by Voodoo PC founder Rahul Sood and David Raskino, the Seattle-based blockchain game company recently unveiled its first game: MechaFightClub. The characters are mechanical-looking roosters that are reminiscent of cock fighting.

MechaFightClub’s chickens are mechabots with NFTs, which use the blockchain to verify the uniqueness of each chicken. The title is a “play-to-earn” game, where players can own the characters that they buy and profit from them if they can resell them to someone else once they’re leveled up.

While cockfighting is controversial, it is popular in Asia and the creators are aware that people are concerned about the cruelty of the real-world sport, and so the developers are emphasizing humorous combat, not gory realism, Sood said in an interview with GamesBeat.

MFC players will collect, train and battle combat robots in a futuristic, mixed martial arts-inspired experience. Each mechabot develops unique fighting styles, abilities, and preferences over the course of its life, utilizing machine learning to give each NFT a lifelike personality on and off the battlefield, Sood said.

The funding was disclosed on Friday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Today, Irreverent Labs confirmed that Andreessen Horowitz led the round, with other investors including blockchain cryptocurrency Solana; Brian Lu, founder of Infinity Ventures Crypto; Michael Ovitz, founder of Creative Artists Agency; Sonam Kapoor, Bollywood