Los Angeles-based Carv is the latest contender in the space to have attracted investor attention. The company recently raised $4 million, valuing it at a handsome $40 million, it tells TechCrunch. The round was led by Vertex, an early-stage focused VC firm under the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek.

Carv is taking a different approach from other all-encompassing DID solutions by zeroing in on the gaming industry first. Its main products include an engine that aggregates gamer data from both web2 and web3 and corrals that information under unique user IDs. On the enterprise front, Carv provides white-label data service to game operators which can then query cross-platform data about new users, such as their reputation and achievements on established ecosystems like Steam.

Six months after launching its beta version, Carv has partnered with over 90 games and exceeded 300,000 registered users. Around 160,000 of them are active monthly, spending an average of nine minutes on the platform each session. The DID system is compatible with more than 20 Layer 1 networks including Ethereum and Solana, which will allow Carv to cover 95% of the blockchain games on the market.

The company’s seed round was backed by a long list of participating investors — typical for web3 deals where startups try to forge partnerships with ecosystem players. They included EVOS (ATTN Group), SNACKCLUB (Loud Gaming), Infinity Ventures Crypto, YGG SEA, UpHonest Capital, Lyrik Ventures, Lintentry Foundation, PAKADAO, 7UpDAO, and angel investor Aliaksandr Hadzilin, co-founder of NEAR.