In-game item trading was a multi-billion-dollar gray market long before the term Web3 existed, and DMarket was one of the first companies to bring it into the open. Founded in Kyiv in 2017 by Vlad Panchenko and Tamara Slanova, DMarket built a blockchain-based marketplace for in-game items across AAA titles like CS:GO, Dota 2, and Rust, giving players a transparent, liquid venue to buy, sell, and trade skins and virtual goods at scale.

What made DMarket interesting to us was the focus on existing player demand. Rather than try to manufacture a new gaming economy, the team plugged directly into the largest one already in motion: hundreds of millions of players moving items inside titles they already loved. That product-market fit, paired with serious commerce, security, and matching-engine engineering, is what separates real marketplaces from speculative venues.

This fit the Fulgur thesis on programmable digital ownership in gaming. Whether settlement happens on Bitcoin rails, Lightning, or other networks, the underlying truth is the same: players want to truly own and freely trade their items, and the studios willing to enable that will earn outsized loyalty. DMarket showed how big the prize is when you treat virtual goods as a real asset class with real liquidity.

We partnered with DMarket in 2020, and in January 2023 the company was acquired by Mythical Games, validating both the thesis and the team. Backing operators in Kyiv who built through extraordinary conditions, and seeing them through to a strategic exit, is exactly the kind of partnership we aspire to across the portfolio.