Animoca Brands Wins Final Abu Dhabi Approval to Manage Investment Funds

Abu Dhabi Global Market's Financial Services Regulatory Authority has built a reputation since the 2010s as a free-zone regulator eager to license crypto firms, having previously approved exchanges and custody providers operating under its common-law framework. Animoca Brands, the Hong Kong-based investor behind stakes in The Sandbox and other Web3 gaming projects, has spent years as a venture backer rather than a regulated manager. This permission marks its entry into licensed fund management rather than informal investment.

Animoca's subsidiary can now raise and manage investment funds in Abu Dhabi, but only for professional and institutional clients, not retail savers. Family offices, wealth managers and institutional allocators gain a regulated vehicle to access Animoca's crypto and Web3 investment strategies. Retail investors who might have wanted exposure through Animoca directly remain shut out, and the company must still define individual fund terms and exposure limits before any capital moves.

The approval formalizes a pivot already underway: Animoca is trading its identity as a scrappy gaming and venture investor for the compliance apparatus of institutional finance. That shift cuts both ways. It signals that regulators are willing to let crypto-native firms run licensed funds, a credibility boost for the sector, but it also means Animoca now answers to fund governance rules that sit uneasily with the fast, permissionless deal-making that built its venture reputation.

Attention now turns to which specific funds Animoca Asset Management (AD) Limited launches under its October 13 permission and what assets or strategies they target. Any expansion of the license to retail clients, or the absence of one, will clarify whether Abu Dhabi intends this as a template for broader crypto fund access or a narrow institutional carve-out. Animoca's own disclosures on fund terms, expected to follow, will be the next concrete marker.