Now valued at $4 billion, the company will use the funds to build out its NFT-based metaverse.
Yuga Labs, the company behind the popular non-fungible token (NFT) project Bored Ape Yacht Club, has raised a $450 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
The round, first reported to be in the works back in February, values the company at $4 billion.
The official announcement of the funding caps off what has been a monumental two weeks for Yuga Labs. The company acquired the intellectual property of rival blue-chip NFT project CryptoPunks on March 11, and on March 16 the Bored Ape Yacht Club-linked ApeCoin (APE) token launched by proxy. ApeCoin now boasts a $12 billion market cap, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Yuga Labs says it plans to use the new funding to build out an NFT-based, ApeCoin-powered gaming metaverse called “Otherside.” The company released a trailer video for the project on Twitter days before the funding announcement.
Metaverse investor Animoca Brands, which made its play-to-earn Benji Bananas game ApeCoin-compatible on March 17, also participated in the round.
After the new funding was announced on Tuesday, Andreessen Horowitz changed its Twitter avatar to that of a Bored Ape.
This article was originally published on Coindesk by By Eli Tan
