Orange Cap Games Raise $3.5M For Moonbirds and Vibes TCG

Web3 game studio Orange Cap Games has announced a $3.5M USD raise, with these funds set to fuel the growth of their Pudgy Penguins Vibes TCG and the recently-purchased Moonbirds IP.

Led by Web3 investment firm 1kx and Yuga Labs, the move signals continued support of the Moonbirds brand by the Yuga Labs team post-sale, and confirms co-founder Greg Solano‘s belief that “there’s no one better than Orange Cap Games to help [Moonbirds] reach [its] potential.”

This follows a $2M pre-seed angel round in September 2024, with participants including Pudgy Penguins parent company Igloo Inc., Yield Guild Games founder Gabby Dizon, and Rektguy creator OSF.

Key Insights

• Orange Cap Games have announced a $3.5M raise, led by 1kx and Yuga Labs
• These funds will be used to “bring IP to life while growing the Vibes TCG and Moonbirds products and ecosystems”
• This follows a $2M raise in September 2024, including participation from Igloo Inc., Gabby Dizon and OSF
• Yuga’s involvement signals their continued support of Moonbirds, in spite of their recent sale of the IP
• Further details on the next steps for the Vibes TCG and Moonbirds IP will be shared in due course

What is Orange Cap Games?

Orange Cap Games is a self-styled “game and experience design studio”, based in New York.

Though they are a relatively new arrival on the Web3 gaming scene, their team boasts decades of collective experience in designing and manufacturing tabletop trading card games – and they have brought that expertise to the blockchain industry.

The team are the developers of Pudgy Penguins official trading card game, Vibes – a hybrid physical and digital experience that is stocked in over 100 retailers worldwide, and has seen over 4 million cards sold and 350,000 online games played since its launch in December 2024.

Last week, it was announced that Yuga Labs had agreed to sell the Moonbirds IP – which they themselves acquired in February 2024 – to Orange Cap Games for an undisclosed fee. It is unknown if Yuga’s involvement in Orange Cap Games’ $3.5M raise is a separate deal, or part of their divestment plan.

What will these funds be used for?

Orange Cap Games have stated that these funds will help them to “bring IP to life while growing the Vibes TCG & Moonbirds products and ecosystems.”

Further details have yet to be shared, though given that the announcement comes shortly after their acquisition of the Moonbirds IP – with a similarly short timespan observed between the announcement of their September 2024 raise and the reveal of the Vibes TCG – we can speculate that these funds will play a key role in their plans for the Moonbirds brand.

Peter Pan, partner at 1kx – the investment firm which led this $3.5M round – stated that “We continue to believe that the world’s biggest IP to emerge over the next decade will have their roots in crypto, and believe that onchain primitives will enable new forms of IP to flourish in ways never seen before.

“We believe it is still incredibly early in this design space, and that very few operators have been capable of cracking the code on this category. We believe that Orange Cap Games has that potential.”