Yuga Labs, the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection and the new owners of the CryptoPunks and Meebits brands, has reportedly completed the raise of a $450 million funding round. This comes after the launch of their ApeCoin token just last week, which has gained a whopping 3,840% on the first day of the launch.
This fundraiser puts the firm’s valuation at $4 billion. Leading the round was Andreessen Horowitz, which per earlier reports has been circling a Yuga Labs fundraise. Other contributors include Animoca Brands, Coinbase, FTX, MoonPay LionTree, Sound Ventures and Thrive Capital.
What is interesting about Yuga Labs is that, according to Joe Pompliano, the curator of the Read Huddle Up newsletter, the company was founded just 14 months ago and only had 11 full-time employees in January. He also added that the firm was able to generate revenue of $138 million in 2021 and a net profit of $127 million.
What you should know
- This is Yuga Labs first institutional investment, marking one of the largest seed rounds for any non-fungible token (NFT) collection to date.
- The company plans to use the funds to scale its team, attract more creative, engineering and operations talent, as well as for future joint ventures and partnerships.
- To celebrate the occasion, Chris Lyons, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, loaned his Bored Ape to a16z, which uploaded it as the firm’s new profile picture on Twitter.
- Lyons also tweeted that he will be joining the board of Yuga Labs to help “define the future of culture and innovation.” He stated, “I am beyond excited to announce that a16z crypto is leading the financing of yugalabs and I’m joining the board. We look forward to helping the team continue to usher the next wave of creators and builders into web3 to define the future of culture and innovation. LFG!”
The Financial Times had previously reported that Yuga Labs was raising funds at a multibillion-dollar valuation. This news also comes after Yuga Labs tease a new metaverse project called “The Otherside,” which will be powered by the ApeCoin token released. The ApeCoin currently trades $12.19 per token, up 10.05% for the day.