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Bored Ape Yacht Club Creators in Funding Talks With Andreessen Horowitz: Report

The startup is seeking a valuation of as much as $5 billion in the proposed funding round.

By Jamie Crawley
AccessTimeIconFeb 3, 2022 at 12:53 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 7:16 p.m. UTC
A selection of Bored Apes, one of the bestselling NFT avatar series. (Screenshot/OpenSea)

A selection of Bored Apes, one of the bestselling NFT avatar series. (Screenshot/OpenSea)

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Yuga Labs, the startup behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, is in talks with venture capital heavyweight Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) over a funding round that would give it a valuation as high as $5 billion, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

  • Yuga Labs is in talks about selling a multimillion-dollar stake with a16z among the firms it is courting, the Financial Times said, citing people with knowledge of the discussions.
  • Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 algorithmically generated images of cartoon apes minted and sold as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain, counts a score of celebrities as owners, including Paris Hilton and Steph Curry.
  • Rapper Eminem recently bought one on OpenSea for 123.45 ETH ($319,000).
  • Previously an early investor in Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb and Stripe, a16z has invested extensively in the cryptocurrency industry, recently telling investors it is looking to raise $3.5 billion for a new crypto venture fund.

Read more: A16z Publishes Web 3 Policy Proposal for World Leaders

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Jamie Crawley
Jamie Crawley

Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.

Follow @JamieCrawleyCD on Twitter

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