Animoca Brands deepens AI ambitions with US$10 million Minds ecosystem fund

The initiative will support startups building AI-agent applications on the company’s Minds platform across gaming, finance, productivity, and social sectors.

Animoca Brands has announced an investment programme of up to US$10 million for early-stage startups and developers building on its persistent AI agent platform, Minds, as the Hong Kong-based company deepens its push into agentic AI infrastructure. The announcement was made at Consensus 2026 in Miami.

The programme is open to teams across multiple sectors, including gaming, finance, productivity, and social platforms, provided Minds is used as a core product layer. Selected projects must demonstrate a clear product thesis, strong execution capability, and a practical path to building deployable products and scalable businesses. Beyond funding, selected teams will receive technical support, Cognition Credits, platform compute resources, and direct access to the Minds technical team. They will also be connected to Animoca Brands’ portfolio of more than 600 Web3 companies and projects for potential partnership and distribution opportunities. The investment allocation is quality-driven and not tied to a fixed deployment schedule.

The announcement comes as Animoca Brands is also pursuing a proposed reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed Currenc Group Inc., targeting a Nasdaq listing by the end of 2026, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals. The Minds investment programme signals that the company is simultaneously building out its AI infrastructure ambitions ahead of that transition.

Animoca Bets on the Rise of AI Agents

Minds, also referred to as Animoca Minds, is a persistent AI agent platform that allows users and developers to deploy customizable, always-on AI agents without needing to operate local servers or manage any hardware or software. Agents built on the platform can maintain memory and context across sessions, collaborate with other agents, and be accessed directly through email or Telegram. The platform is designed for both developers and general users, with the stated aim of improving AI literacy and making autonomous AI tools accessible to non-technical audiences.

Animoca Brands has framed Minds as part of a wider shift toward what it describes as the “agentic web,” or Web4, where AI systems move beyond information retrieval into autonomous task execution on behalf of users.

Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, told AsiaTechDaily that most users still interact with AI in a passive, support-driven way, and that the shift to true task delegation represents a significant unlock.

“People don’t see it because they use AI in a support function, give me the weather, the time, search. But imagine if the agent actually does work for you. That’s a huge unlock,” Siu told AsiaTechDaily.

The new investment programme is aimed at accelerating adoption of the Minds ecosystem by backing developers building specialized AI agents and services on top of the platform.

Beyond Blockchain Gaming

The announcement reflects how far Animoca Brands has moved from its origins in blockchain gaming and NFTs. The company, co-founded in 2014 by Yat Siu and David Kim, initially focused on mobile games before pivoting to blockchain gaming in 2018, building platforms such as The Sandbox and Moca Network. It has since evolved into one of the most active investors in Web3, with a portfolio spanning more than 600 companies across gaming, DeFi, AI, and real-world assets.

Over the past year, the company has increasingly shifted its public positioning toward AI infrastructure, digital identity, creator economies, and agent-based systems, arguing that the convergence of AI and blockchain represents one of the most significant shifts in how the internet will function.

Animoca has positioned Minds at the intersection of these two trajectories, arguing that future AI-agent ecosystems will require decentralized settlement layers, low-cost transaction rails, and on-chain identity systems to operate at scale.

Siu told AsiaTechDaily that the shift from human to machine agency has fundamental implications for how digital economies operate. “Production has moved from human agency to machine agency, and machine agency is 24/7,” he told AsiaTechDaily.

The broader industry has seen growing investment in autonomous AI agents and workflow automation, with companies racing to develop systems capable of handling complex tasks independently while retaining contextual memory across interactions. Animoca’s programme positions it as a platform operator in that race, using investment, technical support, and ecosystem access to attract developers and build out commercial use cases on Minds.

Funding, Infrastructure, and Ecosystem Access

The US$10 million allocation will be deployed selectively, with investment decisions based on execution capability, scalability, and commercial viability. There is no fixed deployment timeline, and the programme is currently open for applications at build.hellominds.ai.

In addition to funding, participating startups gain access to Minds infrastructure, Cognition Credits, and Animoca Brands’ wider ecosystem of more than 600 portfolio companies and Web3-related partnerships. The approach mirrors a broader pattern in platform investing, where operators use capital and technical resources to anchor developers to their infrastructure and accelerate early commercial adoption.

With its Nasdaq listing in progress and Minds now backed by a formal investment programme, Animoca Brands is consolidating its position at the intersection of Web3 infrastructure and the emerging agentic AI economy, betting that persistent, context-aware AI agents will become a foundational layer of future digital services.

Quick Takeaways

• Animoca Brands has launched a new investment programme of up to US$10 million focused on startups building on its Minds AI agent platform.
• The initiative targets developers creating AI-agent applications across gaming, finance, productivity, and social sectors.
• Selected startups will receive funding, technical support, Cognition Credits, and access to Animoca Brands’ wider ecosystem and portfolio network.
• The move reflects Animoca Brands’ broader expansion beyond blockchain gaming and NFTs into AI infrastructure and autonomous digital systems.
• The company is positioning Minds as a persistent AI agent platform capable of supporting context-aware and long-term AI interactions.
• In a recent interview with AsiaTechDaily, co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu said AI agents could become significantly more impactful once they move beyond search and information retrieval into autonomous task execution.