There’s one thing new and stunning from the individuals who introduced us Phrases With Pals and Fortunate’s Story.
1000’s, a revolutionary Web3 protocol that transforms word-of-mouth advertising right into a common attribution infrastructure – along with sister firm The Wildcard Alliance – immediately introduced a joint $9 million fundraising spherical.
Arbitrum Gaming Ventures and Paradigm co-led the spherical. The McKinney, Texas-based firms, based by co-CEOs Paul and Katy Drake Bettner whose previous work contains Phrases With Pals, Fortunate’s Story, and Age of Empires, have secured $6.5 million to this point and count on to shut the remaining funding over the subsequent 60 days.
Wildcard is a third-person, 2v2 Collectible Card Motion Sport (CCAG) that seamlessly blends fast-paced enviornment fight with strategic deck-building. As a champion, you battle in real-time, summoning highly effective creature-companions out of your deck to combat alongside you. Grasp dynamic skills, outplay opponents with skillful motion mechanics, and harness the ability of your summons in an exhilarating fusion of collectible card technique and third-person motion fight—all set in a reside, interactive enviornment.
This new funding builds on the businesses’ $46 million Collection A raised in 2022, and can be used
to speed up improvement of their built-in ecosystem of merchandise, using the 1000’s
protocol and 1000’s.television platform to unlock new channels of creator-centric person acquisition
and assist launch their very own upcoming sport, Wildcard.
“It’s easy,” mentioned Paul Bettner, co-CEO, in an announcement. “Wildcard solely succeeds if its creators and neighborhood succeed. So we’d like a greater technique to reward these unbelievable contributors who drive immense
worth to the sport. 1000’s provides us the on-chain ‘rails’ to unravel this downside, to report and reward person acquisition and conversion at each step of the funnel.”
The synergy between Wildcard and 1000’s has already demonstrated explosive progress.
The 1000’s community recorded over $800,000 in income in Might 2025 alone, with a median revenue-per-stream of $50,000, common viewer-to-payer conversion of 77%, and a brand new all-time-high income report at $134,000 — metrics that far exceed trade requirements.
The 1000’s community addresses an untapped, trillion-dollar word-of-mouth economic system, by making affect and attribution clear, programmable, and incentive-aligned. The 1000’s community permits creators and communities to earn immediately when their content material drives conversions, whereas IP homeowners profit from considerably decrease buyer acquisition prices in comparison with conventional channels.
“1000’s is redefining how video games and content material attain audiences,” mentioned Rick Johanson, founding accomplice at Arbitrum Gaming Ventures, in an announcement. “Their web-native streaming layer – suppose Twitch meets WalletConnect – permits each linked viewer to grow to be an lively participant in an on-chain economic system, reworking spectators into engaged customers.”
“We consider on this sport, and we consider on this staff,” mentioned Dave White, analysis accomplice at Paradigm, in an announcement. “Paul, Kate, and staff have created some of the eagerly anticipated video games in crypto and we’re very excited for what comes subsequent.”
Since their preliminary funding, each platforms have achieved important milestones. Wildcard was lately authorized for launch on Steam, the place the 100k+ neighborhood at the moment are playtesting Alpha builds of the sport weekly, in preparation for Wildcard’s Early Entry launch later this 12 months.
These playtests are broadcast on 1000’s.television a number of instances per week, serving to to show the 1000’s’ community’s potential to maintain engagement and monetization, with a median income per viewer of $141 {dollars}.
“1000’s doesn’t really feel like streaming. It’s now not a one-way avenue.”, mentioned Payton Kaleiwahea, content material creator and founding father of WolvesDAO, in an announcement. “Followers and creators are interacting; you’re not simply watching the sport. You’re linked to it. You’re inside it. With 1000’s, being there issues, and that modifications the whole lot.”
The businesses have 30 full-time workers and one other 30 or so contractors.
