Holding Company for NFT Raises $50M in Series A funding
The increasing inflow of venture funding into non-fungible token start-ups demonstrates the need for regulators to monitor this space closely. Metaversal announced Tuesday the completion of a $50 million financing round to support the company's growing investing capabilities in NFTs and metaverses.
CoinFund and Foxhaven led the Series A investment, which included participation from Collab+Currency, Digital Currency Group, Dapper Labs, Rarible, Franklin Templeton, Theta Blockchain Ventures, and Galaxy Vision Hill. Metaversal's objective includes the acquisition of high-profile digital assets via its venture studio and the backing of initiatives that will be self-funded by the firm. Additionally, Metaversal utilized the funds to execute partnerships with Rarible, an NFT platform, and Flow, a Dapper Labs-developed blockchain. Google and Filecoin, among others, have supported Flow, which powers NBA Top Shot and CryptoKitties.
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NFTs were critical to the mainstream success of crypto and blockchain in 2021. According to industry figures, the sector earned more than $14 billion in sales last year, with digital art and collectibles accounting for 91% of total transactions. To date, the NFT market has been dominated by digital art. However, new music NFTs and fashion collectibles are likely to alter the market's dynamics in the near future.
As of the third quarter of 2021, venture capitalists have invested $2.1 billion in NFT-related initiatives, indicating that this is a significant growth vector. According to PitchBook, Andreessen Horowitz handled around 40% of NFT-related transaction activity. According to sources, venture capital companies spent more than $17 billion in cryptocurrency and blockchain-related enterprises in the first ten months of 2021, more than three times the amount invested in 2020.
The fashion industry has spent millions of dollars in NFT. However, the expansion of the wear and earn NFT idea in 2021 might result in a shift away from conventional methods of earning money and toward employing NFT platforms to keep current with technology to boost the company's value.