Asian Tech Press (Nov 29) -- Planetarium, the developer of decentralized PC role-playing game Nine Chronicles, is in the final stages of talks for a $41.8 million funding round.

South Korea's non-fungible token (NFT)-based open-source gaming platform Planetarium, owned by Nine Corp., is expected to attract about 50 billion won ($41.8 million) in Series B investment early next month, KED Global reported Sunday. The company, which is valued at about 350 billion won, is in the final stages of investment talks.

It developed Nine Chronicles, the world's first decentralized and open-source massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), which was released in October 2020.

Animoca Brands Corp., a global blockchain company based in Hong Kong and owner of The Sandbox metaverse platform, led the investment, according to the report.

Samsung Next, the venture capital arm of Samsung Electronics, is also considering an investment, gaming industry sources said.

In November 2019, French gaming giant Ubisoft formally signed a deal with Planetarium to collaborate on an open-source player-driven online blockchain game, also incorporating it into its start-up program the Ubisoft Entrepreneurs Lab.