Azuki among the latest NFT projects to get VC funding

At first, the Twitter rumors said that the Azuki NFT project had it raised a funding round that brought its creator, Chiru Labs, to a $1.4 billion valuation. The unconfirmed rumor was allegedly an exaggeration.

New information from The Block suggests that Chiru Labs is closing an upcoming $30 million Series A round, which will value Chiru Labs between $300 million and $400 million upon completion.

Neither the company nor the project’s pseudonymous founder Zagabond has confirmed these values.

During the speculation frenzy, the price of the average Azuki went from 11.5 ether (ETH) to 15.7 ETH on OpenSea, with the collection peaking at a floor price of 11.9 ETH on Wednesday.

The highest price paid in US dollars for an Azuki NFT in the past 30 days was around $142,700 – 105 ETH on Monday, according to NonFungible. As the price of ether fell, another collector ended up buying an Azuki NFT two days later for 106 ETH, or about $135,000.

Prohibition of insider trading, in the case of NFTs, remains an unclear area of ​​business policy and the law.

Recently, Hong-Kong-based art collector Adrian Cheng tweeted that he bought 101 Azukis to “democratize and demystify the Web3 and Metaverse for everyone” out of “love and admiration” for the collection.

Cheng, who is also the co-founder of venture capital firm C Capital, announced the firm’s rebrand to C Ventures and its plans to raise a $200 million blockchain fund and a $300 million private equity fund over the next 18 months, Bloomberg reported .

Whether or not Cheng participated in Chiru Labs’ supposed fundraising efforts is not yet clear.

However, Benoit Pagotto, the co-founder of the Nike-owned NFT project RTFKT, made a curious Tweet not long before the rumors started. In response to a Twitter user alluding to a venture capital funding announcement from Azuki on September 13, Pagotto stated that Chiru Labs may have “talked to a lot of vcs” but it wasn’t closing deals.

He also mentioned Cheng’s recent NFT sweep as the potential “start of something” and revealed that Cheng had also invested in RTFKT.

Other recent NFT projects

Hume, a Web3 record label, previously acquired virtual “metastar” Angelbaby – an NFT character from the NFT project FLUF World. On Thursday, Hume announced that it raised $11.7 million in a Series A round to fund more metaverse-based musical artists.

Doodles revealed last week that it had raised $54 million at a valuation of $704 million, in a round led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm 776. Although Doodles had originally announced the investment in June, under NFT.NYC, it had The details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Proof Collective, the company behind Moonbird’s NFTs, raised $50 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) in late August.

And the biggest NFT funding round yet goes to Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs.

Thanks to a16z, the startup raised $450 million in March, bringing its valuation to $4 billion.

These projects claim that the capital raised will go towards executing their roadmaps and funding the expansion of their intellectual property and NFT ecosystem into entertainment, metaverse and gaming ventures.

Get today’s best crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every night. Subscribe to Blockworks’ free newsletter now.