By Darren Parkin
Web3 financial app ‘hi’ is to receive a huge investment from metaverse and gaming specialist Animoca Brands.
Animoca has agreed to invest $30 million in ‘hi’ and collaborate on a number of initiatives to amplify the utility of fungible tokens and NFTs within the Web3 space.
The partnership is expected to lead to deep integration between Animoca Brands’ ecosystem and hi’s innovative services that are driving Web3 mass adoption. With a strong focus on boosting the ecosystem, anchored by the hi app and the hi protocol (hiP), the two companies will work to provide developers with a unique human authentication mechanism through hiP’s proof-of-human-identity (PoHI) solution.
In 2022, ‘hi‘ – which has amassed over 3.5 million users with one million KYC-ed users – announced the world’s first debit card featuring NFT avatar customisation, powered by Mastercard.
With the first cards shipping in Q3 2023, eligible cardholders will be able to personalize the face of their debit card with an NFT avatar they verifiably own, and spend their fiat and digital currencies at more than 90 million locations worldwide. Animoca Brands’ portfolio companies could benefit from this unique customisation feature.
“We are looking forward to investing in and partnering with hi, which is committed to bridging the gap between the fiat and cryptocurrency worlds,” said Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands.
“As part of this partnership we will collaborate with ‘hi’ on its continued development of the hi app and the hi Protocol to drive positive impact for the broader Web3 ecosystem.”
Sean Rach, co-founder of ‘hi’, added: “hi is proud to work closely with Animoca Brands, especially given its experience in backing some of the earliest and most prominent Web3 companies. By teaming up with Animoca Brands, we will be able to boost the adoption of hi products and services, helping to drive mass adoption for blockchain technology.”
