Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have become popular in the Hip-Hop community. Throughout 2021, AfroTech shared reports on Timbaland, Lil Baby, and Future being fans of the collection. Recently, a few artists have invested in Yuga Labs — the Web3 firm behind Bored Ape.

Snoop Dogg, Timbaland, and Gunna were a part of a $450 million seed funding round — led by a16z crypto — according to Music Business Worldwide. Other investors included Animoca Brands, The Sandbox, LionTree, Sound Ventures, Thrive Capital, FTX, MoonPay, Samsung, and more.

The funding reportedly brought Yuga Labs’ valuation to $4 billion.

“Yuga Labs has quickly become a web3 culture, gaming, and entertainment empire,” said Chris Lyons, general partner at a16z crypto, in a press release. “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. We’re thrilled to invest in this brilliant team and their vision, and help forge the next frontier of community-owned entertainment.”

Yuga Labs' Latest Funding

The Web3 platform will “use the funds to scale its rapidly growing team, attract the best talent across creative, engineering and operations functions, and for joint ventures and partnerships it has planned,” according to the press release.

“Already, a new economy is possible with the IP of Apes, Punks, and Meebits, owned by the community,” said Nicole Muniz, CEO of Yuga Labs. “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.”

Yuga Labs partner Guy Oseary added: “This capital will give Yuga speed to market on many things underway, and bring in new partners with strategic thinking that share the vision.”

The Company's Journey

Before making its new announcement, earlier this month Yuga Labs acquired NFT collections CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs.

It was also revealed on March 18 that its new metaverse project — Otherside — is going live in April.