Pencil Finance Secures $10M War Chest for Student Loans—Backed by Crypto Heavyweights Animoca and Open Campus
Web3 meets student debt: Pencil Finance just locked down a $10 million funding round to disrupt education loans. Animoca Brands and Open Campus—two names that make crypto degens swoon—are backing the play.
Why it matters: This isn’t your dad’s Sallie Mae. The platform promises blockchain-powered loan transparency (and probably a side of NFTs). Because nothing says ’financial aid’ like speculative assets.
The kicker: Watch traditional lenders clutch their pearls as crypto quietly eats another slice of legacy finance. Just don’t ask what happens if ETH tanks mid-semester.
About Open Campus
Open Campus is a community-led DAO that is building an on-chain education network to empower both educators and students. CORE contributors to the Open Campus DAO include Animoca Brands, TinyTap, NewCampus, RiseIn, and HackQuest. Together, they are working with Open Campus to enhance the education system for teachers, learners, and institutions by using innovative blockchain protocols and funding initiatives. Open Campus has launched EDU Chain, a Layer 3 blockchain on Arbitrum Orbit designed for consumer-facing education apps and on-chain education finance (EduFi), powered by the EDU token.
About Animoca Brands
Animoca Brands Corporation Limited (ACN: 122 921 813) is a Web3 leader that leverages tokenization and blockchain to deliver digital property rights to consumers, helping to establish the open metaverse and its associated network effects. It has received broad industry and market recognition including Fortune Crypto 40, Top 50 Blockchain Game Companies 2025, Financial Times’ High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific, and Deloitte Tech Fast.
Animoca Brands realizes its mission via three integrated business pillars: operating Web3 businesses to advance blockchain adoption with native projects such as Moca Network, Anichess, The Sandbox, Open Campus, NEOM Web3 initiatives, and a regulated stablecoin project in partnership with Standard Chartered and HKT; providing digital asset advisory services including tokenomics advisory, liquidity provisioning, and institutional research to help external Web3 projects grow; and investment management, with a portfolio of investments in over 540 companies including industry leaders Pudgy Penguins, Yuga Labs, Axie Infinity, Polygon, Consensys, Magic Eden, OpenSea, Dapper Labs, YGG, and many others.
For more information visit www.animocabrands.com or follow on X, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok.
About HackQuest
HackQuest is the gateway to the Web3 development world, providing a comprehensive, one-stop educational infrastructure that minimizes friction and helps onboard developers and non developers to the world of Web3. HackQuest believes that improving Web3 developer education is key to driving mass adoption.
About Pencil Finance
Pencil Finance is a decentralized lending protocol focused on bringing real-world student loan financing on-chain. It connects investors with verified student loan originators, turning student debt into a transparent, investable asset class. Pencil uses blockchain infrastructure, a dual-tranche capital structure, and smart contracts to deliver structured, risk-adjusted returns backed by real-world student loan portfolios, enabling sustainable yield generation with tangible social impact.
