Bored Apes NFT creator sets sights on metaverse after $450m capital raise
Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, said it has secured $450m (£341m) of funding to launch a metaverse.
The capital gives the firm a $4bn valuation according to Yuga Labs and was led by Silicon Valley investor Andreessen Horowitz with participation from FTX, The Sanbox and Amimoca Brands among others.
The news comes a week after the launch of ApeCoin, a crypto token linked to the Bored Ape Yacht Club which already boasts a $12bn market cap. Earlier this month, the company snapped up the intellectual property of rival NFT project CryptoPunks, consolidating its position at the apex of the market.
“The possibilities for blockchain’s impact on culture are endless, and so we are building a beautiful, interoperable world for people to explore and play in. There’s a lot to come,” revealed Nicole Muniz, the chief executive of Yuga Labs.
Chris Lyons, a general partner at a16z crypto dubbed Yuga Labs “a web3 culture, gaming, and entertainment empire.”
“Mainstream adoption in web3 is accelerating at lightning speed, and Yuga is at the forefront of merging culture and innovation for everyone to enter the metaverse,” Lyons added.
Yuga Labs said it plans to use the funding to scale its team, attract new talent and to fund an array of joint ventures. The company’s metaverse project will be called ‘Otherside.’
“This capital will give Yuga speed to market on many things underway, and bring in new partners with strategic thinking that share the vision,” said Yuga Labs partner Guy Oseary.
Read more: UK has potential to become ‘global epicentre’ for crypto innovation