Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC), has been on a roll since past few months. From acquiring two popular NFT projects (Cryptos Punks and Meebits) to listing the ApeCoin token on the leading crypto exchanges. But the latest development that was announced barely two days back proved to be an icing on the cake for this young NFT startup.
Yuga Labs announced on Tuesday that it has raised $450 Mn from several marquee investors at an eye-popping valuation of $4Bn. This is the first external funding for the Mami based startup and probably won’t be the last. Investors are more likely to pour more funds in future into this much sought after NFT at a much higher valuation.
To the best of our knowledge, today Yuga Labs is the most valued NFT startup.
Following its maiden funding, the startup said that it is planning to foray into Metaverse. The company’s metaverse project will be called ‘Otherside’ that will mostly include avatars from other projects.
The Otherside will seek to connect Yuga Labs’ massively multipolar role playing game into the border NFT universe. The popular gaming studio Animoca, the creator of the Sandbox Metaverse, will be collaborating with Yuga Labs in this metaverse project.
Apart from Metaverse, Yuga Labs said it is also interested in DeFI (decentralized finance) and GameFi and innovative blockchain projects.
Yuga Labs has taken the NFT world by storm with its BAYC NFTs, which roughly boosts 10,000 unique bored NFT apes. Today several of these tokens are owned by big celebrities including musicians like Snoop Dogg, Timbaland and Dipo as well as other high-profile celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Serena Williams.
BAYC has already crossed $1Bn in total sales. Its sales are expected to reach further northwards, at least, as long as the hype around NFTs doesn’t subside.
Meanwhile, Yuga Labs foray into Metaverse is least surprising considering that any startup that is remotely attached to Web 3.0 or NFT invariably foray into the world of Metaverse. On the outset, it seems that Yuga Labs want to become build a decentralized media empire and dominate the decentralized world.