Mighty Jaxx, an award-winning integrated future culture platform that designs and produces digital and phygital collectibles, has announced the multi-million-dollar acquisitions of local companies Kinetiquettes, a high-end statue collectible company, and PLAYe, a specialized DTC platform of consoles, video games, collectibles, and action figures.
The announcement of this acquisition by Mighty Jaxx comes soon after its recent Series A+ funding in excess of US$20 million and is part of a growth strategy aimed at extending the company’s capabilities in and beyond the future of collectibles. Despite the current global business environment, Mighty Jaxx continues to field strong interest for its unique positioning and work in the phygital and meta world and has raised a total of over US$40 million to date as it continues to develop products that live in both the physical and digital worlds.
With growing demands from fandoms and collectors around the world seeking unique experiences in their collectibles beyond the physical realm, bringing Kinetiquettes and PLAYe under the Mighty Jaxx umbrella will allow all three companies to collaboratively evolve, develop better technical expertise, and increase product offerings.
“The physical collectible has always been our core business and while that will not go away, the intention is to take what we have and amplify it both digitally and phygitally. The acquisition of Kinetiquettes and PLAYe moves us closer to our creative vision of working towards connecting all our fandoms onto the MightyVerse. We are looking to develop real life experiences, the MightyVerse, digital collectibles and work towards a true hybrid phygital offering via our platform that will reimagine the full-experiential journey for all fans and create value for them” says Jackson Aw, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Mighty Jaxx.
Kinetiquettes, known globally amongst collectors for its expertise in high-end statue collectibles and world class design, will offer opportunities for Mighty Jaxx to develop a new product category. Key to the acquisition is also the addition of new significant licensed intellectual properties (IPs) into the Mighty Jaxx portfolio, where Kinetiquettes will bring onboard cult gaming IPs like Capcom’s Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, SNK’s King of Fighters, Arc System Work’s Guilty Gear and the wildly popular anime titles Attack on Titan and My Hero Academia.
With the addition of Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Attack on Titan and My Hero Academia to add on to the One Piece IP Mighty Jaxx already has in its portfolio, the company now has what is widely considered to be the world’s premier fighting game IPs and three of the world’s most significantly impactful anime properties of all time to call upon. Both companies have already started exchanging technical know-how and resources to jointly develop new product line-ups in blind boxes, window boxes, single releases and statue formats that will carry the same signature-designed phygital offerings in both traditional and digital mediums for its global fandoms.
The convergence of expertise and resources allows Mighty Jaxx to leverage the strong interest of collectors in experiencing physical collectibles in the metaverse, through enhancing a seamless phygital fan journey on the Mighty Jaxx platform.
Pivotal also to Mighty Jaxx successfully creating and developing a full experiential, cross platform journey is the acquisition of PLAYe. The acquisition offers an opportunity to leverage PLAYe’s direct-to-customer channels, and whose established business-to-business network in the world of pop culture will greatly enhance the visibility of Mighty Jaxx products in stores and supplement PLAYe’s offerings to create and complement a bigger community of avid game enthusiasts and collectors.
Already armed with multiple DTC touchpoints locally, Mighty Jaxx will work closely with PLAYe to establish new business-to-business channels and multi-brand DTC touchpoints across Southeast Asia for a stronger omnichannel shopping experience. This will allow the company to achieve more quality customer interactions, and most importantly to seamlessly integrate its digital touchpoints and products.
“We are incredibly excited to join hands with Mighty Jaxx to exchange our know-hows in creating new lines of products across a greater portfolio of character intellectual property. Coupled with new access to the Mighty Jaxx platform, fans can look forward to unlocking an immersive digital experience like no other”, shared Adeeb Md, co-founder at Kinetiquettes.
Chris Sng, the Founder of PLAYe, adds, “PLAYe has been a source of joy for many avid game players and collectors since our humble beginnings in the heartlands. Together with Mighty Jaxx, we look forward to introducing the future of collectibles to our community through our DTC touchpoints and channels.”
The global market for collectibles is growing, and Mighty Jaxx has its eyes set on what the future of collectibles would look like – an experience that transcends physical boundaries to connect collectors in the metaverse. The acquisition will see a combined workforce of over 150 people globally, with 80% in Singapore – and the company plans to actively acquire talent globally, with an anticipated headcount of 200 at the end of 2022, and 400 globally by end 2023 – expanding Mighty Jaxx’s business and contribute to its growing global footprint.
Kinetiquettes and PLAYe will continue to operate independently while actively collaborating under the umbrella of Mighty Jaxx’s management, who will continue to be on the lookout for further synergistic opportunities globally.
From Left to Right – Kelvin Chan, Woon Chong, Adeeb Md (co-founders, Kinetiquettes), Jackson Aw (Founder and CEO, Mighty Jaxx), Bryan Tan (Chief Strategy Officer, Mighty Jaxx), Chris Sng (Founder, PLAYe)