Gamers have long bought and sold digital items like swords, jewels, and spaceship parts. Cryptocurrencies, which are inherently digital, seem like an obvious tie-in. In a bid to make good on that combination and build blockchain payments rails for video games, the Bitcoin payments startup ZBD has raised $40 million in a Series C fundraise.
Based in New Jersey, the company sells access to video game payments software that can process a variety of transactions, including Bitcoin ones. Blockstream Capital, a crypto investment firm connected to early Bitcoiner Adam Back, led ZBD’s most recent funding round and put in $36 million, Simon Cowell, the startup’s cofounder and CEO, told Fortune. He declined to name the other investors and at what valuation ZBD raised its most recent round.
“We’re talking about a payment solution for the entire industry that actually really enables them to have a direct financial relationship to the player,” Cowell added.
Zebedee
ZBD’s fundraise comes amid a climate of growing pessimism regarding the integration of crypto into video games. Long hailed as one of blockchain’s most obvious use cases, the combination hasn’t achieved the same mainstream adoption that boosters promised during crypto’s bull cycle in 2021 and 2022, when advocates said that NFTs were a clear evolution of in-game collectibles.
