Jez San’s new blockchain casino raises $26m

Jez San’s latest online gaming venture, a blockchain casino called funfair.io, has raised $26m in just four hours through an initial coin offering (ICO).

An ICO involves the sale of a platform’s virtual currency to investors.

The FunFair ICO was initially scheduled to last a maximum of 15 days, but reached a hard cap of $10m in contributions made using the Ether cryptocurrency in just four hours.

FunFair also received more than $15m in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from individual contributors as well as institutional funds, including BlockTower Capital, Kryptonite1 and Pantera Capital.

“I’m thrilled that the blockchain community and institutional investors have so emphatically backed the team, our vision and the progress we’ve already made,” said Jez San OBE, founder and CEO of FunFair.

“Now it gets even more exciting as we work towards a live platform and the creation of a truly fair, transparent and player-focused gaming world.”

FunFair is expected to hold a second larger fundraising round later this year.

“I’m excited to see an experienced entrepreneur like Jez San bring blockchain technology to gambling,” said Ari Paul, founder of investor Block Tower Capital.

“Gambling is an obvious use case for blockchain tech, but hasn’t yet been implemented in a user-friendly way – I’m looking forward to seeing FunFair change that.”

For more information on the mechanics of FunFair.io read EGR Intel’s exclusive interview with Jez San.